Blog

If you have the savings, it’s the age-old question, is it time to rent or buy?  Although this is often a personal decision with regard to a residential property, the same should hold true on the commercial side.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to leasing vs. buying a business condo.  Renting obviously provides you with flexibility.  If you’re a small IT recruiting firm, unaware of what your future holds, you may be biting off too little, or possibly even too much, than you can chew.  Purchasing a business condo may lock you into a space that you’ll either out-grow or may never fully use.  Additionally it can be a financial handcuff that you never recover from.  Your business will have its ebbs and flows, but your mortgage will always be constant.  For some companies, the heavy financial burden can be crippling.

Here’s some advice from someone who has been there.  Just four years into the birth of my IT recruiting company, we purchased a 4,000 square foot office condo in downtown Boston, MA.  Home to the HQ of AVID Technical Resources; this space solidifies our flagship office.  While there were many unknowns when we bought the condo (our future revenue, future IT recruiting force, the commercial value in a market where business condos were scarce and in a city already pricing out many other IT staffing companies), we took the calculated risk based on a couple of certainties.  First, we saved every dollar earned and were able to put enough money down to make our mortgage manageable.  Second, based on the number of colleges in Boston, the city will always be a hotbed for start-ups and companies looking to tap into these educational resources.  These vary reasons have historically driven the commercial leasing market, making Boston one of the most expensive rentals in the country.  Subsequently, our mortgage would be no greater, and in fact possibly even less, than a typical 5-year rental.  Third, whether you purchase a house for your family or a business condo for your company, it gives you the chance to build equity instead of handing your money to a landlord.  Finally, and probably the biggest factor that drove our decision, we had confidence in our ability and in the future of our IT recruiting agency.

Even after a virtual real estate market collapse, I can sit here almost four years later and honestly say purchasing our office condo was one of the best decisions we made (for ourselves and for the future of our IT recruiting company).  In fact, as we continue to expand across the country and open up additional IT staffing locations, you can be sure we’ll be looking to purchase office space in future cities as well.