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If you know you need a physical space for your business, and you know what features you need in that space, then your next question is probably, “how much sp­ace do I need?”

According to OfficeFinder.com, in typical office scenarios, you can estimate 175-250 square feet per employee. If you know, however, that you’ll need a couple of large executive offices then you need to estimate more square footage for those. Typical “presidential” offices range from 150-400 square feet. Secretarial and administrative space, on the other hand, will range from 60-110 square feet.

Don’t forget about meeting room space. Conference rooms should allow 25-30 square feet per person for a traditional conference room arrangement. If you’re using it in a classroom (or theatre) style setup you can estimate 15 square feet per person.

Your reception area should accommodate your receptionist, as well as the average number of people you would expect to enter at any given time. If you expect to routinely have groups of 6-9 people arriving and waiting in your reception area, then make sure you have at least 300 square feet. For smaller groups of 3-5, you need at least 200 square feet.

Other space requirements, like filing areas, library space, break rooms, mail rooms, and general storage should not be left out either. The space requirements for these types of areas will vary depending on your use and needs. Here are a few more guidelines:

• For filing cabinets, allow 7 square feet per cabinet.
• In your library, remember to account for people as well as your media shelving.
• People-space can typically be estimated at 15 square feet per person for sitting at tables for break rooms, libraries and meeting rooms.

Remember to plan accordingly for telecommuters and other “transient” workers. If a large portion of your workers telecommute, or are out of the office for a majority of their time then set up non-assigned workstations that they can use when they come in. In most cases, designated office space is not necessary for employees who work from many locations. You can save tremendously on your square footage by using this type of system. It may mean that more filing cabinets, printers, etc. are necessary in employee’s homes, but you’ll still come out better in the long run.

These are just a few guidelines for determining your space needs. Many web sites offer space calculators. The Links section of this workshop provides links that will take you to more of those sites.

To ensure that space is measured on a consistent basis, most building owners follow the Building Owners and Managers Association Guidelines (BOMA) Standard Method for Measuring Office Floor Area in commercial real estate buildings. Make sure the property you are interested in has been measured using these guidelines so you don’t end up paying for space you don’t have.

Next, let’s move on to your time frame. How long is this whole process going to take? Probably longer than you think!

Source: http://money.howstuffworks.com/office-space3.htm

When deciding what purposes you need your office space to fill, think about your expected everyday activities.  For instance:

• Will you expect clients to visit your office? — Think about….a nice reception area, easy parking, product display areas, conference areas
• Will those clients stay for extended periods of time? — Think about…. larger meeting rooms, audio/visual rooms, the impact and impressions that the rest of your office space will make on them… Should there be a closed-off area that clients visit?
• Will groups of your employees have regular project meetings? — Think about…. having several small meeting rooms with white boards, computer hook-ups, overhead projection systems, etc.
• Will many of your employees travel extensively or telecommute? — Think about…. setting up central, non-assigned workstations where anyone can plug in and do their work with access to e-mail, and voice mail.
• Will you need open spaces that will foster creative thinking and teamwork? — Think about…. setting up separate areas where collaborative efforts can easily be discussed and brainstormed without disturbing others.
• Will you have employees involved in phone negotiations, research study, and other tasks that require more quiet concentration? — Think about…. private offices where more independent work and private discussions can take place.
• Will you have employees or clients with sight or hearing impairments, physical challenges, etc.? — Think about…. special accommodations for employees or clients with special needs.
• Will you need a break room? — Think about…. lunch room space, kitchen appliances, games and activities to relieve stress and foster creative thought, restful decor, energetic decor, etc.
• Will noise be an issue in any respect? — Think about…. sound proofing meeting rooms, break rooms, product development areas, manufacturing areas, etc.
• Will you need loading and shipping dock areas? — Think about…. future ventures into product lines you may not offer now, receiving large orders of supplies, etc.

There are probably other uses for your office space, so make sure you’ve thoroughly thought through all of the activities you see being performed on a routine (and even a non-routine) basis and write them down. Your final selected space should accommodate most if not all of those needs.

So now you know the uses the space will have, but how much square footage should you look for? Let’s go to the next session to find out how to estimate the size office you need.

Source: http://money.howstuffworks.com/office-space2.htm

First, ­let’s start with what the other guys are doing. Around the turn of the century (that would be this one), you couldn’t get office space in San Francisco without first showing your potential landlord your business plan and offering stock options.

You had to pitch your landlord the same way you did your venture capitalists. Landlords realized they could pick and choose tenants and interview them, rather than vice versa. Since the dot-com bust, however, that has changed drastically. The vacancy rate in San Francisco jumped from 2% in 2000 to 9% in 2001. Now, landlords are less picky and will often divide up floors of their buildings to suit smaller tenants. Here are a few numbers for the statistic-happy among you…

At the end of 2000, the regions with the lowest average vacancy rates were the:

• Northeast with a 4.7% vacancy rate
• West with a 6.9% vacancy rate
• South Atlantic with a 7% vacancy rate
• Midwest with a 8.9% vacancy rate
• Southwest with a 11% vacancy rate

Source: REIS, Inc.

Some of the fastest growing rental rates at the end of 2000 were in these cities:

West Coast Market

• San Francisco — almost double that of 1999 ($63.65 psf average rental rate)
• San Jose — 41% increase over 1999 ($46.73 psf average rental rate)
• Seattle — 16.2% increase over 1999 ($31.62 psf average rental rate)
• Oakland-East Bay — 25.2% increase over 1999 ($31.61 psf average rental rate)
• San Diego — 14.7% increase over 1999 ($24.07 psf average rental rate)

Southwest Market

• Austin — 16.7% increase over 1999 ($26.17 psf average rental rate)

Eastern/Northeastern Markets

• DC — 7.7% increase over 1999 ($35.82 psf average rental rate)
• Boston — 19.2 increase over 1999 ($42.09 psf average rental rate)
• New York — 23.4% increase over 1999 ($50.82 psf average rental rate)

Source: REIS, Inc.

So, you can see that as of the end of last year, things were still pretty much booming in the world of commercial real estate, albeit slightly less so than in 1999 and 2000. Does that mean you’ll have a hard time finding office space? That depends on where you’re looking. In most markets, space is readily available (San Francisco being the least easy market). The area itself will dictate what you have to pay, so check out the average prices per square foot, and think about the location needs of your business long and hard before making your move.

Other trends include more telecommuting and working from home offices. According to the William Olsten Center for Workforce Strategies, more than 50 percent of companies in North America offer some form of telecommuting to their employees and about 75 percent have plans to expand the programs. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, home offices have also jumped from 4 million in 1990 to 11 million in 1997. The number is expected to increase to 20 million in 2001. Allowing telecommuting has a definite impact on your office space needs. Those workers still need space when they come to the office, but they don’t need a designated desk that sits empty three days out of the week. The key is to have central workstations available that anyone can plug into when they’re in the office. This reduces the space requirements for your office, and still allows your telecommuters to get work done while they’re in the office.

What About Virtual Offices
Do you really need real estate in order for your business to succeed? Obviously, if you are planning a large manufacturing venture, you’ll need commercial or industrial space in which to do it. But what about the smaller guys who are beginning a consulting service? How many hours would you or your employees spend in an office anyway? Do you need face-to-face contact with your employees, or would phones and e-mail suffice? Video conferencing is also widely available. Is a physical office really worth the expense and upkeep? Perhaps a good virtual office would really be the most you need. By taking advantage of technology and other new office services, you can offer your clients many of the same benefits as your real estate-leasing counterparts. You can even have a prestigious sounding address complete with a suite number available through places like Mailboxes Etc. and other packaging and mailing businesses. Most of these businesses offer the equivalent of a post office box, but with a “suite number” rather than a P.O number. You can receive packages, and have 24-hour access to your box.

Office Space Options

If your work involves traveling, you have many options for where you can get your work done. The most obvious, and least comfortable, is the parking lot outside your client’s building, or the seat you find at the airport while waiting to board your plane. Other more comfortable options include:

• Telecenters This is a business center that rents space along with access to clerical assistance, e-mail, voice mail, fax services and a receptionist. These are useful for work forces that travel the majority of the time. Most major cities have several of these centers.
• Tenant space These are rented spaces that are used for specific projects for short periods of time (usually weeks or months).
• Hotelling Popular in the consulting, financial, and high tech fields, this system allows you to buy or lease a smaller space than you would otherwise need. It works for businesses that have the majority of their employees on the road most of the time. With this system, employees reserve workspaces for specific blocks of time and keep all of their files with them on a personal computer or other electronic device. The whole process is facilitated by a “concierge”.
• Executive Suites These can be leased for as little as $100-200 per month. (For very limited use.) This type of arrangement provides you with a receptionist, voice mail, e-mail, and other services, along with access to private offices, a reception area, a meeting room, and more that is shared with other businesses and managed by a management firm.
• Business Incubators These are groups that foster new business startups by providing the usual office space and services, as well as management and finance assistance.
• The Ultimate Home Office In the not so distant future, it is projected that many urban areas will have what is called Live-Work Condominiums. The idea is to take advantage of office space that is only used 8-10 hours out of the day, and turn it into combination housing and work environments.

For those of you who know you need some type of permanent office space, let’s look at the possible functions you may need in office space.

Source: http://money.howstuffworks.com/office-space1.htm

New Zealand’s largest office space investor sees a stark contrast in our two largest cities, with a shortage of prime space in Wellington as its new Auckland building lies almost empty.

AMP NZ Office Trust, which owns $1.3 billion in prime office space in Wellington and Auckland, reported a 12 per cent rise in distributable profits to $47 million for the nine months to March 31 yesterday.

Chief executive Rob Lang said despite the backdrop of a weak economy, the trust’s occupancy level in the capital was at 98.6 per cent, with demand from businesses for more.

“There is private sector demand that, at present, we are unable to cater for, such is the level of that demand.”

While there had be a fall in demand from the public sector as government spending was cut, Mr Lang said its only exposure to Wellington was prime space. Its buildings tended to house department headquarters, many of which have expanded recently as functions are centralised. Earlier this month the trust announced that the Department of Corrections had agreed to lease about 11,500 square metres of space in its Mayfair House building, the second-largest lease in its 12-year history.

Mr Lang said its other tenants included the headquarters of the Treasury and the Ministry of Health, and spending cuts were expected to hit other, smaller secondary locations.

“If there is retrenchment in health, then we would expect to see [the Ministry of] Health consolidate in their headquarters.”

Auckland, meanwhile, remained flat, with its new building at 21 Queen Street, completed last September, almost 90 per cent unoccupied. Because of Queen Street, which had its book value cut by $40 million last year, the trust’s occupancy in Auckland is around 80 per cent.

Mr Lang insisted vacancy was a significant problem across the Auckland market and denied the trust had been unrealistic about its expectations for rent at Queen Street.

“We’re being very commercial and happy to meet the market,” he said.

While the level of inquiry at the building had increased, prospective tenants appeared to be using weakness in the market as leverage to gain better terms with existing landlords.

“The property attracts very strong interest in the Auckland market but the deal flow and execution in Auckland is very thin.”

The trust was prepared to be “very flexible” to attract tenants to join real estate company CB Richard Ellis, the Queen Street building’s sole occupant.

“We’ll do the deals in the best interests of the investors in the project, and we’re very flexible in how we package those deals. Once you do have one or two deals it is true that it does create momentum.”

// After writing down the value of its portfolio by $63m in the second half of 2009, the trust made no further change to the book value of its assets this year. Lang predicted in December that the worst was over for asset impairments.

The trust said it was paying a net third-quarter net dividend of 1.475 cents a unit. Last year the trust raised $201m through a rights issue to pay down debt.

Its unit price rose 1c to 75c yesterday.

Source:   http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/3618624/Auckland-offices-vacant-as-capital-feels-the-squeeze

The internet is changing the real estate industry on a daily basis. And, not surprisingly, it’s the Web 2.0 innovators that are leading the revolution. Of course this isn’t the first time that new media gurus have redefined an industry. However, this time around old school brands are being left in the dust, while innovative startups are reaping all the benefits.

New evidence is starting to come to light that Web 2.0 sites like Zillow.com and Trulia.com are gaining more traction and market share then nationally franchised brand named sites. To get a better understanding of why these sites are doing so well, lets take a look at four sites in particular. On the Web 2.0 side we are going to discuss Trulia.com and Zillow.com on the brand name side we will take a look at RE/MAX and Century 21.

Zillow is a Web 2.0 web site that provides its visitors with tools and information on the real estate industry along with general real estate search. Founded by the same folks that brought us Expedia.com. It garnered much attention when they briefly snagged Vanessa Fox from the ranks of Google a little over a year ago. However, its not the people alone that has made Zillow a popular place for consumers. Zillow has successfully combined social networking and a wiki style portal with up to date real estate listings and market information. Zillow’s “Discussions” is a forum where consumers can engage with other consumers and real estate professionals on a wide variety of real estate topics. This type of engagement is popular in real estate because it gives the consumer the ability to gather information while keeping a comfortable level of anonymity. For most home buyers anonymity is extremely important in the early stages of real estate search. Social engagement is not the only thing that Zillow is succeeding at. Zillow’s “Real Estate Guide” is a wiki style information portal that is chalk full of articles for all areas of real estate. Offering a resource like this gives Zillow market authenticity and makes content ripe for linkbait. But the truly ingenious aspects of adding a wiki is that all the content is free. While Zillow’s users benefit from collectively creating this content, Zillow reaps the benefits of free original content that is constantly fresh.

Zillow is not the only Web 2.0 company trying to make a go at real estate. Trulia.com combines real estate search with social engagement tools as well. Trulia Voices is an area where homebuyers can ask questions about a specific area or topic. Real estate professionals that specialize in that area then have the ability to respond. This once again is another example of social engagement that is extremely popular. One thing that Trulia has got going that Zillow seems not to have mastered yet, is a very polished understanding of SEO. Trulia is ranking pretty well for highly competitive real estate search terms. While their SEO tactics are extremely aggressive to say the least, in my opinion they do provide engaging content that warrants relevant rankings. And it appears that others are taking notice. Just last month Trulia secured another $15 million in venture capital, that’s comparable to the $15 million that power house startup Twitter landed at the end of April.

We already know that RE/MAX is dominating in the area of brand recognition in web search volume. So its no surprise that remax.com is ranking as the top name brand real estate site. Century 21 comes in second and in the same token is placed as the second most visited name brand real estate site. However both sites are still falling short of these Web 2.0 wonders. Why? You ask? Well in my opinion the two big reasons that these sites aren’t doing as well, is their complete lack of social engagement and their limited understanding/dedication to SEO.

Take a look at remax.com. Here we see a typical real estate search tool. However, when one performs a search they are redirected off their site to a locally owned franchise site. This is great for the local franchise but it means that remax.com has significantly less control over their brand, because each locally owned brokerage depends on a different 3rd party developer for web services. The result is that remax.com’s search tool provides some times unreliable ambiguous results. As for social engagement, the only thing that comes remotely close is a directory of sales associates’ contact information. It appears from my view that the biggest thing RE/MAX has going for it on the internet is name recognition.

Century21.com has put much more time into their search tool. They have been successful at integrating mapping features via Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. And it is safe to assume that their index of listings is significantly larger because they combine all of the listings under their parent company Realogy, who also owns Coldwell Banker, ERA, and Sotheby’s. However, once again they have absolutely no social engagement features besides their directory of sales associates.

So, we have seen that social engagement can be very powerful when it comes to real estate sites. Then, one might ask, why isn’t big name brands like Century 21 and RE/MAX integrating social elements into their systems? Maybe they don’t think they need to. Century 21 for example syndicates all of it’s listing data to a handful of different sites, such as Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo Real Estate, Google Housing Search, and others. With this method Century 21 is letting these sites do all the marketing for them. However, at the same time, this method does little to enable their sales associates to build relationships with homebuyers.

In my opinion to build a strong base of support on the internet that will transfer into offline growth, brand name real estate companies such as RE/MAX and Cenury 21 need to integrate social elements into their preexisting systems that allow for the homebuyer to establish a relationship with their sales associates. Otherwise these companies run the risk of being passed over by a market of consumers that are becoming increasingly more social online.

Source:  http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/school-real-estate-brands-loosing-web-20-innovators/