Serviced offices (Regus, etc.)
Discussion
I'm looking for an office for 3-4 people and just went to a Regus in Cardiff to check it out. I like the flexibility and the all-in-one solution, but am not a fan of the cost (about £800k a month, after discounts and negotiations). When youbreak down the cost it isn't too bad, just more than I had hoped to pay, especially as I'm not sure I'll use all the services.
Anyone got any experience with Regus, or another serviced office company, they'd like to share?
Anyone got any experience with Regus, or another serviced office company, they'd like to share?
Not a big fan of most of the serviced office companies. A lot of them are quite crafty in the way they work their extra charges. I know of one that would rent you a meeting room for 20 people, then charge you extra per person for the chairs - now I can understand that if they were providing refreshments in the price, but when they weren't it's a bit of a micky take to charge you (not cheap either) for the room, then extra per person on top. It's often much much cheaper in the medium term to just rent somewhere unserviced larger than you need and have your own conference room etc. There are good deals to be had right now on office space (he says, having just secured more office space for waaay less than £10/sqft./yr in the middle of Sheffield).
As an aside, what do Regus consider 3-4 person in terms of sqft?
As an aside, what do Regus consider 3-4 person in terms of sqft?
Edited by LivinLaVidaLotus on Thursday 30th April 18:09
£800 sounds right - i am (was) looking at 1/2 person at £450-500pm in Reading (Theal).....now going for a "garden office" instead.
Be aware though - there are LOADS of places at these centres (maybe not regus...but i walked round one of their competitors last week that must have been 70% at MOST)
I also think they get a bit of a bad rap on costs....having rented (the traditional way) an office in the past i would far rather have Regus try and sneak a checky charge on me for a meeting room than worry about insurance, rates, alarm systems, etc, etc, etc that i used to have to deal with. If i dont get planning for my garden office....i'll go to Regus (or similar)
Be aware though - there are LOADS of places at these centres (maybe not regus...but i walked round one of their competitors last week that must have been 70% at MOST)
I also think they get a bit of a bad rap on costs....having rented (the traditional way) an office in the past i would far rather have Regus try and sneak a checky charge on me for a meeting room than worry about insurance, rates, alarm systems, etc, etc, etc that i used to have to deal with. If i dont get planning for my garden office....i'll go to Regus (or similar)
Is this the Regus office up at Cardiff Gate? If so then the company I used to work for had 5 of the 6 wings at one point and were paying £20k per month per wing to let them. Unsuprisingly the same company closed 6 months ago and made 300 people redundant as it wasn't financially viable to keep the business running - I wonder why!
LivinLaVidaLotus said:
As an aside, what do Regus consider 3-4 person in terms of sqft?
It was just under 200. Not the largest of spaces but could fit 3 desks and a small meeting table or 4 desks.igiveup said:
Dick Dastardly said:
£800k a month
Dan 80 said:
Is this the Regus office up at Cardiff Gate? If so then the company I used to work for had 5 of the 6 wings at one point and were paying £20k per month per wing to let them. Unsuprisingly the same company closed 6 months ago and made 300 people redundant as it wasn't financially viable to keep the business running - I wonder why!
It is that one. The sales man told me about them, the parent company is still paying rent for the next 18 months they reckon.Edited by Dick Dastardly on Thursday 30th April 20:19
Dick Dastardly said:
igiveup said:
Dick Dastardly said:
£800k a month
Puggit said:
Used a Regus office for 2 years recently (TVP Reading). We needed to setup a wireless router with a 3G card in it for a backup internet system as we couldn't rely on them providing internet.
Apparently it was a national problem...
Doesn't suprise me. We had a Regus office in slough and the comms cabinet was Apparently it was a national problem...
I'm talking cat5 cable dreadlocks, so tangled together it was like a woven rug hanging in front of the equipment. Was doing some work on our router and the girl in "supervising" decided to tidy the cables, by grabbing one loose end and yanking! I finished quickly and disappeared before the fallout arrived...
We've got a tiny 40 seat centre in Guildford, one thing we've heard recently from potential customers is one of the big players are now starting to charge 'exit fees'.
From what we've been told they roughly equate to the discount you've negotiated (I'm not sure if they meant the months free, discounted rent, or both).
I've not checked this out, but it sounds like a good idea to scrutinise the small print before signing on the line!
Other than that just check the costs on: phone handsets, phone programming alterations, calls, internet (especially bandwidth!), static IP, rack space, meeting rooms, photocopying and probably some others I've forgotten.
From what we've been told they roughly equate to the discount you've negotiated (I'm not sure if they meant the months free, discounted rent, or both).
I've not checked this out, but it sounds like a good idea to scrutinise the small print before signing on the line!
Other than that just check the costs on: phone handsets, phone programming alterations, calls, internet (especially bandwidth!), static IP, rack space, meeting rooms, photocopying and probably some others I've forgotten.
Dick Dastardly said:
LivinLaVidaLotus said:
As an aside, what do Regus consider 3-4 person in terms of sqft?
It was just under 200. Not the largest of spaces but could fit 3 desks and a small meeting table or 4 desks.As a quick set of figures, what you'll be paying for <200 sq. ft. we'll be paying for just under 900 sq. ft. including business rates but excluding everything else.
Rents vary considerably across the country so its not reasonable to compare different geographic locations.
Regus and other serviced office providers work really well for some companies, ideal for example for a single person needing a phone answering service and occasional secretarial support, but not wanting to 'employ' a member of staff, and they also work fantastically for some of the major corporates that need a degree of liquidity in the property holdings (ie. the ability to exit space at short notice perhaps 3 months rather than a rigid lease period).
The downside of this obviously is that you pay for it. There are a lot of other suppliers out there and its worth shopping around. Some of the private space on the market might well be available on more attractive terms for you.
I moved a tenant out of Regus in Fareham (also a PH'er) last year to conventional space and for them we were able to make savings but they were not using a lot of the additional facilities that Regus can offer. Personally I would suggest that unless you are using those additional services (such as telephone answering, conference facilities, secretarial support etc) then you are probably better off taking conventional space on a flexible licence basis which is becoming more readily available as the market tightens.
Regus and other serviced office providers work really well for some companies, ideal for example for a single person needing a phone answering service and occasional secretarial support, but not wanting to 'employ' a member of staff, and they also work fantastically for some of the major corporates that need a degree of liquidity in the property holdings (ie. the ability to exit space at short notice perhaps 3 months rather than a rigid lease period).
The downside of this obviously is that you pay for it. There are a lot of other suppliers out there and its worth shopping around. Some of the private space on the market might well be available on more attractive terms for you.
I moved a tenant out of Regus in Fareham (also a PH'er) last year to conventional space and for them we were able to make savings but they were not using a lot of the additional facilities that Regus can offer. Personally I would suggest that unless you are using those additional services (such as telephone answering, conference facilities, secretarial support etc) then you are probably better off taking conventional space on a flexible licence basis which is becoming more readily available as the market tightens.
Must admit in the current market I am not sure why anyone would want to go down the Regus or similar route. It must be possible to find office space on a traditional basis where you can negotiate much better rent and have similar flexibility.
As regards the person building a Garden Office don't say it is for business use, or you'll have the VO round fairly quickly to assess it for business rates!
As regards the person building a Garden Office don't say it is for business use, or you'll have the VO round fairly quickly to assess it for business rates!
I was that client! And a very good negotiation job you did too, Tim.
To give you an idea we got about four times the space for about the same money for a comparable product.
Having said that Regus can be very useful for certain situations and it suited us for quite a while. And yes they do charge extra for everything they can get away with and charge plently. For example £79.00 per person for internet connection and £79.00 per phone line and phone hire. If you use all the services you can add another 50% onto the rental costs without any problem. And all the time we were there they continually cut costs like free newspapers, sky TV, 23 hour security staff etc.
But keep in mind that starting up a new business or opening up in a new area you get easy in and out agreements, no furniture costs, no legal fees, no need to employ admin staff and you even don't have to buy a mug or coffee. So for low capital outlay in can have huge potential benefits.
But what did it for us in the end was the dismal quality of people they employed. In our branch we had a new centre manager several times and the rest of the staff were kids or uterly useless. Eventually we got frustrated by the quality of phone answering, complete lack of any IT knowledge on-site and we just wanted to control that side of our customer facing ourselves. With a good centre manager and staff there is no reason why a Regus type operation can't be very effective.
To give you an idea we got about four times the space for about the same money for a comparable product.
Having said that Regus can be very useful for certain situations and it suited us for quite a while. And yes they do charge extra for everything they can get away with and charge plently. For example £79.00 per person for internet connection and £79.00 per phone line and phone hire. If you use all the services you can add another 50% onto the rental costs without any problem. And all the time we were there they continually cut costs like free newspapers, sky TV, 23 hour security staff etc.
But keep in mind that starting up a new business or opening up in a new area you get easy in and out agreements, no furniture costs, no legal fees, no need to employ admin staff and you even don't have to buy a mug or coffee. So for low capital outlay in can have huge potential benefits.
But what did it for us in the end was the dismal quality of people they employed. In our branch we had a new centre manager several times and the rest of the staff were kids or uterly useless. Eventually we got frustrated by the quality of phone answering, complete lack of any IT knowledge on-site and we just wanted to control that side of our customer facing ourselves. With a good centre manager and staff there is no reason why a Regus type operation can't be very effective.
we've just sorted an office out in the docklands.
the cost people are getting a 3/4 person office for elsewhere would get you a desk at one of the big players (abbey, regus or MWB) in the docklands!
would have been nice to go for the big airy corner office overlooking the river from the citi building, but £900 per desk plus all the extras for internet, phones, printing, etc didn't really fit into our company's strategy at the moment
ended up with 2 desks at the old MLS building for about £300 per desk all in. now managed by kingshott.
word of warning though. don't be tempted to go to an existing MLS building, as they're collapsing like a house of cards. we've lost our deposit on the virtual office agreement we had in the docklands, and i know of many more who've lost thousands.
the cost people are getting a 3/4 person office for elsewhere would get you a desk at one of the big players (abbey, regus or MWB) in the docklands!
would have been nice to go for the big airy corner office overlooking the river from the citi building, but £900 per desk plus all the extras for internet, phones, printing, etc didn't really fit into our company's strategy at the moment
ended up with 2 desks at the old MLS building for about £300 per desk all in. now managed by kingshott.
word of warning though. don't be tempted to go to an existing MLS building, as they're collapsing like a house of cards. we've lost our deposit on the virtual office agreement we had in the docklands, and i know of many more who've lost thousands.
Here in Northern Ireland, we have local enterprise agencies (part of govt small business initiatives) who have biuildings that sme's and start-ups can work from. There are then big conference rooms etc that any of the tenants can use on a pay-and-go basis. Is there nothing like that instead of the Regus giants?
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