When Claudia Daniel took her home-based business into commercial office space last year, she entered a whole new world. We didn't know the pitfalls or what to watch out for. We had to learn a lot about things we did not know, things like build-outs and doing floor plans and developing how we wanted the office to look. Real estate professionals say Daniel is not alone. Inexperience, lack of capital and a market that favors larger tenants all can make it hard for small businesses to secure office space.
Small space can be hard to find.
Once found, small spaces can be equally hard to secure. When landlords do agree to short-term leases, they are likely to be far less generous with the extras. I will do a plain vanilla type of build-out, something that will work for 80 percent of the people that are out there. This way if this guy goes out of business, I don't have a white elephant on my hands. That kind of mindset on the part of landlords made it tough for Tasha Swift to find commercial space when she went to expand her business last year.