I met an interesting pair of entrepreneurs last week. They had just purchased a residential house, in Canterbury city centre and were in the process of converting it into a suite of serviced offices. The services that they planned to include were; a dedicated receptionist, administrative support, telecom service, IT infrastructure and broadband internet connectivity.
They are planning to include in the rental price, free use of communal conference and meeting rooms. Along with this, all furniture, full time security and insurance, are set to be included.
This would be the perfect set up for either, a fledgling business that needed a full time base, or an established business that was looking for a higher profile. For both, there are great benefits to be had in a serviced office. A serviced office would give them an ideal start in the office environment and prevent many of the problems faced when working from home.
The pair owned other commercial properties as well but, interestingly, these had also started out as non-commercial.
The first property that they had purchased was a double garage, bought at an auction for £8000. They had then upgraded the unit by putting in a steel roof and ceiling, burglar proofed windows, a heavy duty access door and a burglar alarm. The premises was then rented out as secure storage, obtaining more than 3 x the rent they would have got as a garage. They then used this property to raise a loan and used the loan to purchase another 5 garages, which were then upgraded to the same specification. The income from these garages was then used for the maintenance of the serviced offices.
Needless to say, the pair are extremely bullish about the whole commercial property market and maintain that, although prices were definitely in a situation of flux, as long as you kept your head about you then there was money to be made.
And the most interesting thing about these budding property moguls? They are both only 19 years old and this is their first year out of school!
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The Benefits Of Serviced Offices
