There are many reasons for a business to look for new office space.

Your business is growing and you need more room,  you want to be located elsewhere for your convenience – or your customers, and all the other possible reasons for moving.

So, What Do You Do?

THE SEARCH IS ON – for hours and hours!

You could start by grabbing you phone and searching Google for “commercial industrial space Columbus” in your “spare time” between meetings, customer calls, handling accounting and running your business.  That search yields 670,000 results.

Many of those results will lead to MORE searches on real estate owners’ websites, Craigslist, LoopNet and CityFeet among others – the list is endless.  There are even some more select properties that on Oay-to-enter sites that require registering and paying a fee.  Searching for industrial space in Columbus can be overwhelming as you look at listings covering millions of square feet.

All this searching can take hours and most of it will lead to frustration.  Wouldn’t it be so great if you could have someone else, who has complete access to and knowledge of the possible locations for your business and could even narrow the list down to a manageable number?

Experienced Help Finding the RIGHT Space

There IS such a person – a savvy commercial real estate agent.  Before you start worrying about how you’ll pay an agent, here’s a little secret – potential tenants or buyers don’t pay anything to use one.  Landlords and sellers pay commercial real estate a commission for completed transactions.  They pay, you don’t.

And there’s MORE good news

A good commercial real estate broker will work with you to develop a plan – like looking for X to Y thousand square  of office/office-warehouse/retail space in Columbus within 2 miles of a I-71 – and will start sorting through available properties to find the most suitable locations for you to lease or buy.

Some of those spaces will be quickly found, however – because of knowledge and connections gained working in the market every day – the agent will find others that are available to people outside of the commercial real estate industry, including some that may not even be on the market yet.  Those “secret” spaces are the kind that you wouldn’t be able to find by yourself and are often the best located, highest quality and most attractively priced.

Analysis

A good agent will take the time to understand your company, its plans for the future and its needs before starting to show  you potential spaces.  That agent will help you figure out the type of space and the general locations that will help you meet your needs and your budget.  No wasted time for you.

Negotiating The Deal

In addition to coming up with a short list of the best sites, your broker will negotiate for you.  You might get some free rent, a discount on the price per square foot, some amenities added (build-outs, furniture or more) to space for free or even time to move in before starting to pay rent.

All in all, it makes sense to use the services of someone who knows all about the commercial space AND doesn’t cost you a dime,

Troy Fabish, of the Fabish Group, is a commercial realtor with Keller-Williams in Columbus, Ohio.  His 20+ years of real estate  and leasing experience and his work ethic will make finding the right space much less stressful – and save you money.