After more than half a dozen moves, finding adequate office space continues to be difficult and time consuming.

There are two reasons why finding office space, especially cheap office space, is relatively hard.

First, there is no place to find a comprehensive list of office space options. This problem is slowly being addressed. There are a growing number of online sites, such as loopnet.com, which list commercial space. The majority of their listings tend to be in more tradition (and expensive) office settings, such as office parks. While they do a decent job of helping mid to large size companies find office space, they don’t work as well for small businesses on tighter budgets. Many lower cost listings, such as space above retail storefronts on “Main Street” or alternatives like shared office space and business incubators, simply aren’t included.

Second, a lot of commercial real estate listings don’t have reciprocal agreements. In the world of residential real estate your agent knows she is going to get paid even if she sells or rents someone else’s property listing. In many cases, commercial real estate agents don’t earn a commission on listings from other agencies. This means they are only going to show you their own listings and, as a result, you may need to meet with multiple agents.

What all this really boils down to is that it’s probably going to take a little more time and effort to find office space than you might have thought. You’ll greatly improve your odds of finding the right space if you’re prepared to commit the necessary resources. If you start looking months before you need to move and budget ample time for the search process you will be fine.

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