commercial real estate broker in overland park

4 Resources for Finding an Office Space in Overland Park, KS

If you are just starting your search for an office space, there are several different resources you can utilize to find spaces in the area where you are looking. The rise of internet listings in particular has made this process a lot easier, allowing businesses to look at several different options before making a decision on a space. Here are a few suggestions, as outlined in the article “How to Search for Office Space”:

#1 Online Listings

One good place to start is websites like Craigslist, LoopNet, or Cityfeet, which are inexpensive services that allow leasing agents to list available spaces. Check as many sites as you can find to compare spaces.

#2 Social Networking Sites

Use Facebook or LinkedIn to ask for recommendations from professional colleagues or friends, or even simply post a request for suggestions on one of these sites. This could save you a lot of time if you get a good recommendation, and it is always nice to have the assurance of a referral.

#3 Property Managers or Owners

If you already have your eye on a specific property, go directly to the firm that owns or manages it to get the most accurate information about what is included in the space or how it can be customized for your business. A larger firm might also be able to direct you to similar spaces in their property to the one you are interested in.

#4 Brokers

If you are looking in a particular geographic area, utilizing a broker might be the best way to look at multiple spaces in that location and compare them. Brokers get a commission from the landlord for bringing a tenant to a space, so make sure you are aware of any fees that might be included in your lease or demanded upfront.

Take the time to use your resources to find as many options as you can so that you have lots of room to compare! The internet and referrals are always good places to start, with added advice from professionals if you need to meet more specific needs.

If your business is interested in finding a commercial space for lease in Overland Park, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100. We can set you up with a tour of one of our spaces and talk to you about what size and layout would work best for your business’s needs!

4 Things You Should Find Out Before Signing an Office Space Lease in Overland Park

Before you commit to a lease, make sure that you have covered all of the important issues with the leasing agent regarding your rent and any questions that could arise during your tenancy. Here are a few questions to make sure you ask, as suggested in the article “Four Questions to Ask Before Signing a Commercial Lease”:

#1 Does the listed square footage describe usable or rentable square feet?

Note that these two numbers are different: usable square footage is the space that makes up just your office space, whereas rentable square footage also takes into account shared space in the property, such as lobbies, walls, restrooms, etc.

#2 What does rent cover?

Know what kind of lease you are signing—a net lease, gross lease, percentage lease, etc. Leases can be all over a spectrum ranging from everything being included, such as janitorial services and utilities (gross), to you as a tenant being charged for operation expenses (triple-net lease). Know what kind of lease you are getting into so you can evaluate and plan your budget accordingly.

#3 Who pays for maintenance costs?

This is a question you want to have an answer to before anything goes wrong in your space. What is handled by a property’s maintenance staff, and what is handled by you the tenant? Think of things such as leaky roofs, squeaking doors, bad faucets, electrical ballasts, etc.

#4 Does my rent increase each year?

Most leases will stipulate small yearly rent increases, but there are various ways to structure these increases:

fixed yearly increases
variable increases that take into account changes in property expenses
adjustments based on the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for your location, a rate set by the U.S. government

Talk to your agent about how increases for your lease will be determined.

It is important to have a clear answer to all of these questions before signing a commercial real estate lease so that there are no surprise expenses during your tenancy. Do a little research and get some clear answers from a leasing agent before you sign the dotted line.

If your business is interested in commercial space for lease in Overland Park, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100. We can talk to you about rental rates, calculating square footage, property management, and any other questions you may have about renting a space in Overland Park!

Technology Tips for Business Inside and Outside Your Office Space in Kansas City

Trying to keep up with the latest technology in your office space? Technology can be both a way to improve your business and a potential obstacle to performance. It is important to not only know what technology is available to your business, but how to maximize the ways you can use it. Here are a few things to consider in order to asses whether or not your business is using technology as wisely as possible, as outlined in the article “Stay Connected”:

#1 Smartphones

If you and your employees have smartphones, make sure you are using them to their full potential. This means more than just internet access, emailing, calling, and texting. Use the calendar app to sync contacts and commitments from email and social media. Look into apps that can help you send invoices and receive payments. There are apps out there for a variety of different things to help your business stay organized, mobile, and customer friendly. Make sure that you are fully aware of what your smartphone could do for your business.

#2 Cloud Storage

This program allows you to access documents from any computer wherever you are. You can do this through iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, or other programs that allow you and your employees to share documents from anywhere. One of the benefits of using these online documents is that you can even have employees working on the same document simultaneously from different places. Cloud storage is also a great way to store documents without taking up space in your office with file cabinets or big servers.

#3 Tethering

If you know you need internet access on the go and don’t want to rely on finding accessible Wi-Fi in places, learn how to turn your cell phone into a modem or “hot spot” for internet on other devices, such as your laptop. This way you can connect to the internet to do work from anywhere—whether it is in a park on the weekend or an airport waiting for a flight.

#4 Skype and FaceTime

These apps allow you to call or video chat employees and clients from anywhere in the world, as long as you have Wi-Fi. This can facilitate interviews and meetings from all different places around the world, and allows you to actually see the person you are talking to, making it easy to present a product or interpret someone’s reaction.

#5 Messaging Apps

There are several web based instant messaging apps available, including Viber, WhatsApp, WeChat, and Voxer. These are alternative ways to connect with people besides texting; these apps work if you are on Wi-Fi or using cell phone data. You can also use these apps for group messaging, eliminating any inconsistencies in carriers or phones that might make texting difficult.

Remember that just because you and your employees can work anywhere does not mean you should work anywhere. Just because speedy responses are possible does not mean that you want to set up the expectation that you can be contacted at any time. Learn to turn off and set limits for yourself, whether you are working from an office or at home. Take advantage of the flexibility technology offers, but always strive for a healthy balance between your personal and work life.

Look into the technology your business uses and see if you are using it as effectively and efficiently as possible—technology can be a great way to streamline your business and increase productivity without creating more work for yourself!

If your business is interested in executive office rental in Overland Park, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100!

Tips for Handling a Loner in Your Overland Park Office Space

If you are trying to develop a sense of teamwork in your office, you might have someone who just resists efforts to collaborate. This loner might be introverted, defensive, and exhibiting a me-versus-them kind of mentality. While they might be a major hindrance to teamwork, they might also be too valuable to let go. So how do you handle them? Here are different approaches for handling a “lone wolf” in your office, as suggested in the article “Building a Sense of Teamwork Among Staff Members”:

Give Them a Role

Assess what their strengths are and assign this person to a special niche or task within the team – something that they can do successfully. Affirm their strengths while at the same time emphasizing the importance of their role within the greater context of the team.

Peer Pressure

While loners might be on a different wavelength than their coworkers, they might still respond to explanations that their behavior is causing a negative environment in the office and creating ill will. Talk to them about how some changes might move the person back within the group, reduce bad feelings, and eliminate that me-versus-them atmosphere that they might be professing to suffer from.

Be Honest

It might be best just to lay out the reality of the situation. Affirm that the person has great experience, valuable skills, and might have even served the business for a time, but make it clear that the expectation is that they need to work with other people in the office. Everyone, without exception, might need to work together and embrace a collaborative mentality for the success of the whole business. If nothing else, they might respond to the fact that their job will be in jeopardy if they cannot work within a corporate culture of teamwork.

Dealing with a loner can put an employer between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they might be good at what they do, and their experience and skills might be hard to replace. But a negative environment does not foster success, and teamwork might be crucial to the fruition of some projects. Consider ways to be firm with the person, while still making it clear that you value what they have to offer.

If your business is interested in commercial space for lease in Overland Park, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100 to set up a tour of a space!

Tips for Avoiding Excessive Maintenance and Repair Charges for Your Office Building in Overland Park

While an obvious first step in your lease negotiation process is to stipulate in your lease what you as a tenant will pay for versus what your landlord will pay for, sometimes landlords still find backdoor ways to hold you responsible for unforeseen expenses.

For instance, you might put in a lease that a landlord is responsible for repairing the heating and cooling system if it breaks down, but the cost of these repairs might still be passed on to you through high CAM fees. For this particular example, consider a few tips for avoiding the financial burden of repairs, as suggested in the article “Avoid Common Area Maintenance (CAM) Cost Surprises”:

State specifically in the lease that if the heating and cooling system breaks down, the landlord is solely responsible for the cost of maintenance and repair of the system as necessary.
Analyze the whole lease to make sure there is no other mention of you being responsible for heating and cooling costs. Make sure that all of your other provisions and mentions of CAM charges exclude mention of the heating and cooling system.
Review anything in the lease about damage charges to limit the landlord’s potential to blame you for damages to the heating and cooling system caused by your business. Make sure that they have to undertake some sort of disagreement resolution process before charging you for the damage.
Distinguish clearly between regular CAM charges and the cost of any improvements or other major expenditures which the landlord might have to make for a space.

Make sure you carefully review your lease so you are not burdened with surprise costs!

If you are interested in commercial realty in Overland Park, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100 to find out more about our available spaces!

Determining Your Leverage in Negotiations for Business Space for Rent in Overland Park

An important part of successful commercial lease negotiations is understanding where your landlord is coming from and using that information to determine what your leverage is. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to figure this out, as suggested in the article “Develop Negotiating Skills”:

Why does the landlord need to rent out the space?

Did a business recently fail in the space and now the landlord needs to find a new tenant in order to stay financially stable? Have there been issues with the location or a high turnover rate? Educate yourself a little on the recent history of the space.

How will the landlord benefit?

A landlord might be extra motivated to rent the space if there is some extra benefit for them. For instance, if you are particularly compatible with another tenant who is considering leaving their space if a business like yours doesn’t move onto the property, they might be more motivated to rent to you.

What leverage do you have and what leverage does the landlord have?

Once you know a little bit about the landlord’s motivations for renting you the space, make yourself a simple list—a column with leverage you have and a column with leverage the landlord has. Consider both sides’ vulnerabilities and pricing power, and use this information in negotiations to determine where you can be tough versus where you can be flexible.

Doing a little research and planning before negotiations can help you enter them with more confidence!

If you are interested in office space in Kansas, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100!

Qualities of a Good Workplace Team in an Overland Park Office Space

Many business today are realizing the advantages of teamwork and trying to foster more collaborative environments in their offices. If you are committed to growing teamwork in your workspace, here are a few common traits of team-oriented staffs to keep in mind, as suggested in the article “Building a Sense of Teamwork Among Staff Members”:

Honesty – people tend to trust each other more when they feel that they can be more open about things, which leads to tighter knit groups that avoid suspicion and gossip.
Acceptance of Work – while most people would rather choose what to do at work, good teams are made of people who can accept assignments from others, which is a more realistic work model. People who work on teams are also often held accountable by peers to get work done on time and done right the first time.
Goal-oriented – people who work well on a team have already collectively accepted their purpose and direction and collaborate to achieve these aims. A good team leader motivates a team by explaining clearly how their specific project goals fit into the bigger picture of the goals of the company.
Results-directed – a good team constantly asseses their progress, rather than just getting mired in the process of something. By consistently assessing their results and adjusting any future action accordingly, a good team continues to operate smoothly and effectively.
Empathetic – good team members are also able to put themselves into each others shoes and consider how their actions and attitudes effect other members of the team. They are also able to listen respectfully to each other’s points of view and keep in consideration the needs and work styles of their coworkers.
Hardworking – the reality is that sometimes projects take longer than expected, but a good team is able to work together until a job is finished. Some teams can begin to fall apart when things get down to the wire and some members start to contribute less time and effort.

If you are trying to promote a team oriented environment in your office, consider how you can promote these values among your employees—often this kind of mentality starts with good leadership! If you are interested in business space for rent in Overland Park, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call today at 903-685-4100 to learn more about our available spaces and talk about setting up a tour!

Tips For Understanding Load Factor For an Overland Park Office Space For Rent

In order to understand load factor, it is important to be familiar with terminology such as usable square feet and rentable square feet. Here are a few terms and explanations to help you understand what you are actually paying for your square footage, as outlined in the article “What is the Difference Between Usable vs. Rentable Square Feet?”:

Usable Square Feet

This measurement consists of the space that a tenant will actually occupy when operating their business. Usable square feet could include either a full floor, minus elevator shafts and stairwells, or just a partial floor, depending on what space the tenant leases, but in either case, this measurement also includes things like columns, recessed entries, storage, private bathrooms, kitchenettes, hallways, reception areas, etc. While a lot of these things—such as electrical rooms or janitorial closets—might not be space that can contain a desk or cubicle, it is still all included in the usable square footage measurement.

Rentable Square Feet

Rentable square feet is calculated by adding usable square feet to a pro-rata portion of the common areas in the building. Pro-rata means that this portion is calculated based on what percentage of the building a tenant will occupy. Common areas include meeting spaces, lobbies, stairways, corridors, restrooms—any spaces that are used by all tenants of a building.

Load Factor

Load factor a number used in the calculation that determines the rentable square feet of a particular space. The load factor, also called the common area factor, is based on the percentage of common areas in the building, and can be found by dividing the rentable square feet in the entire building by the usable square feet in the entire building. This number is then multiplied by the usable square feet of a particular space to come up with the rentable square feet for that space. Once you have the rentable square feet of a space, you can multiply it by the rental rate being offered in order to come up with how much rent you will pay monthly or annually.

Understanding these three terms and how they are related can help you make more informed decisions when comparing different offices spaces. Look closely at the amount of space advertised or the rental rate to make sure you know what kind of square footage calculation they are using, what kinds of non-usable areas will be in your space, and what you will be responsible for in terms of common area costs.

If you are interested in offices suites for rent in Overland Park, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100!

Checklist for Leasing Overland Park Office Space

There are a lot of different factors that go into the decision to rent a commercial office space. Here are a few things to check off your list of considerations as you get closer to signing the dotted line on a lease, as suggested in the article “Location and Leasing”:

Consider the possibility of expansion. Will your business grow in the next few years and need more space? Ask if you can put a provision in the lease that allows you to expand into more space if necessary.
Check for local competitors. Technology has made this step easy: just go to Google, enter the what type of business you have, and click the “local” link at the top of the page and put in your type of business to see the location of similar businesses in the area.
Understand your lease and expenses. Know what type of lease you have, such as net or gross, and if you have net, make sure you know what kind of net lease it is and what expenses you will be responsible for related to CAM charges, insurance, taxes, etc.
Keep your options open. Talk to your landlord about having options at the end of your lease term. It is a good idea to aim for a short term lease to give you flexibility in case of growth and to reduce the pressure of a long term rent obligation. However, you will want to try to give yourself the possibility at the end of your lease of either renewing it or moving to a new space based on your needs at that time.
Consider factors besides rent. While you don’t want to pay for a space that is beyond your means, try to factor in other things when judging a space, such as location.
Consult a lawyer. You might want to retain a commercial real estate attorney to help you negotiate your lease. Given what a huge investment renting a space can be, especially for a small business, it might be worth the cost of a lawyer to make sure that you have negotiated the best possible lease.
Take your time. There are plenty of possible options out there, so take your time to do careful research. It is also a good idea to give yourself plenty of time to search and negotiate if you know that you need to move out of a space by a certain date.

Leasing an office space can big a big transition and investment for a business, so make sure you take the time to check each step off your list!

If you are interested in renting office space in Kansas, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100!

13 Overland Park Office Space Lease Facts To Know Before Negotiations

If you are new to the renting commercial real estate process, there are some terms and ideas that you should familiarize yourself with before you dive in. Understanding these leasing details, described in the article “Commercial Real Estate: What You Need to Know Before Leasing,” will help you enter negotiations with a little more confidence:

Gross Lease. This is the most simple type of lease to understand, as all of your expenses are bundled up in the price per square foot.
Net Lease. In a net lease, you pay for both price per square foot and for a specified amount of other property expenses. A double net lease includes insurance and taxes, while a triple net lease includes insurance, taxes, and maintenance.
Percentage Lease. This type of lease is most common in retail spaces and requires you to pay base rent for square footage plus a certain percentage of your sales.
Lease Length. Most tenants want a short term lease plus options to renew. This option allows you flexibility if you outgrow a space, but it also gives you the option of sticking with a space that is working well for you. However, keep in mind that landlords prefer longer leases, so a longer lease term might give you more negotiating leverage for something else.
Other Expenses. Commercial leases are not like residential leases; in commercial leases the landlord is not necessarily responsible for property maintenance and fixing things like HVAC systems, for example. Make sure that you clarify in the lease who is responsible for what costs.
Rent increases. Landlords will typically try to charge you annual rent increases, also called escalations, which are based on the consumer price index or a similar calculation. Be sure that you fully understand and are prepared to deal with these increases before entering the lease.
Signage. If your business requires signs, make sure you discuss any regulations for posting signs.
Subleasing. You as a tenant will want to push for the option to sublease your space if necessary. This offers you a bit of a safety net if you cannot pay rent or need to move to a different space.
Build Outs. If you are planning on altering a space you need to talk to your landlord about what is allowed and who is paying for improvements. Sometimes if you sign for a longer lease term a landlord might be more inclined to help with the cost of build outs. Remember also that if you cannot use a space while it is being altered, you want to try to avoid being held responsible for rent during that time.
Exclusive Use. An Exclusive Use clause prevents a landlord from leasing a nearby space to one of your business’s competitors, which might be especially important if you rely on foot traffic.
Co-Tenancy. Sometimes properties have “anchor” tenants that other tenants depend on for foot traffic. If this is the case for the property you are considering, you might want to consider a co-tenancy clause, which gives you the freedom to end your lease if that tenant leaves.
Assignability. If you need to sell your business, you will want to make sure your lease allows you to pass the lease along to the new ownership.
Exit Plan. In the event that you absolutely have to break your lease, you will want to have negotiated for minimal penalties, such as only 2 or 3 months worth of termination fees.

Do research ahead of time to make sure that there are no surprises during your negotiations or later in your lease!

If you are interested in an Overland Park office space for lease, give a commercial real estate broker in Overland Park a call at 913-685-4100!