Ask HN: Using a rented apartment for office space? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Using a rented apartment for office space?

8 pointsHomeOffice7 comments

I'm a bootstrapped founder of a five-person startup; we've been growing well but we're still extremely lean. We lucked into a sweetheart deal for office space a while ago, which we recently found out will run out over the summer.

For a variety of reasons, physical office space is non-negotiable but market rates (in Boston) are high. To cut costs, we're considering looking at getting an apartment and housing our startup in there, in addition to probably a founder living there.

Does anyone have experience with this? We've checked with local laws, and it seems ok as long as the lease doesn't prohibit it, but would love to hear other's experiences.

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I've done the home office thing myself and worked out of other people's. Strong, strong recommendation to not have your founder live out of the same office -- it's disruptive both to their personal life (pervasive feeling of lacking privacy and a sense of personal space) and to other people (who constantly feel like they're intruding on someone's space while in their own office).

Landlords/leases and neighbors have a spectrum for how OK they are with this practice, ranging from "No no no no, no no." to "We officially prohibit it but won't raise a stink if you keep foot traffic to a minimum." to "Officially it's OK but unofficially the neighbor across the hall is going to pitch a fit."

I'd consider perhaps using a private room at a coworking space or shared office facility as a bridge to when it is economically rational for you to have your own office. Knowing nothing about Boston but a bit about real estate I'd estimate costs in the ~$2.5k region on a month-to-month lease, and you can probably push that down a bit by e.g. trading down on prestige/convenience of the office address.

You might want to look into coworking space. Also, talk to retail businesses serving other brick-and-mortar businesses specially the ones who do shipping, mailing, and provide mailboxes for other businesses. They tend to know about someone who might be willing to rent/share the space with you.

I once paid $200 per month to a car impound lot for a stand-alone mobile cabin.

If partner / customer (assuming B2B) visits are a possibility, consider that it may not make the best impression on them. Neighbor complaints are another possible area of concern; this was a big problem for one of the original coworking locations in Cambridge, Betahouse.

As others have mentioned, definitely consider coworking; there are a bunch of options in the area now, and they're more affordable than private office space with more benefits over running your business out of an apartment. Here's a list of 20+ coworking spaces in the area: http://bostonstartupsguide.com/guide/boston-coworking-spaces...

Have you looked into Regus thus http://www.regus.com/office-space/boston/?q=boston&top=true? They always have deals for new people.

Most apartments don't like businesses being run out of there. As long as it is not stated in the lease, you should be fine.

"As long as it is not stated in the lease, you should be fine."

The city might also have zoning regulations that prohibit businesses from being run from residential areas.

Check and see if there is a local co-working space.

The one downtown here is $35/mo/person, one closer to my house is $125/mo/person. Still cheaper than rent for a 5 person company. No utilities, free wifi, coffee/drinks, printers and a copier.

You won't have a dedicated office (possible to add one in most co-working spaces for a little extra, still less than an apartment + utilities/ins). The space here you get a mailing address too.

Good luck in 2016.

Why have an office at all?

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