Did you just finish posting your listing, or has it been up for a while? Either way, you probably want to make sure that you’ve done everything possible to make your offering stand out. Well, we’re here to help with three tips to increase your chances of finding your ideal suitor more efficiently and more effectively. If you haven’t already reviewed our guide to creating a posting, we really recommend you take a look.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

We’ve found that listings with at least four well-taken photos that showcase the office space are twice as likely to get a click-through. So what makes a great photo? You can find more details in this blog post, but here is a quick teaser:

• Turn on grid lines on your smartphone. Use those grid lines to align to desks, walls, pretty much anything that’s straight. It’ll give your photos a clean and framed look. Simply Google, “how to turn on grid lines on [your device model]” for more detailed instructions.
• Take photos at chest level. This balances the amount of ceiling and floor in your photos, which makes your office look more spacious. Take out your phone and try moving the camera to your eye and then to your hip. Does the camera capture more of the floor at eye level and more of the ceiling at hip height? If you’ve turned on those grid lines, you’ll see a world of difference.
• Pick a sunny day and shoot as close to the window as possible. Lighting often makes or breaks a picture, and fluorescent light at night will give your office a drab and boring feel.
• Tidy up. You want your prospective tenant to focus on your beautiful space, not on all the random papers, coffee cups, and unwashed dishes lying around. You could take this opportunity to do some spring cleaning, or just move things into a big box out of the frame.
• Show all the spaces. Your space is so much more than just the desks. The entryway, conference rooms, rooftop, kitchen, break-out space, and more are all highly desired features of your office. And don’t forget the details of your fixtures, furniture, and art — they’ll let your personality shine through.

All Good in the Neighborhood

An office is a hub for everyone from employees to clients and even board members. So to ensure people love visiting the office, it’s great to showcase some of the great events happening and venues that live nearby. The more you can highlight the amazingness of your neighborhood, the more attractive it will be for your prospective guests. Take a look through our office attractions and see if you’ve actually been sitting on a neighborhood gold mine without even noticing.

• Mind the Commute. Everyone is going to be commuting to your office at some point, so the more public transportation options, the better. Don’t assume others know the area with simply an address; it’ll be much easier for your guest if you list out all the subway, bus, train, ferry, bike share docks, and even heliport options near you.
• Out of Office Meeting Places. Breakfast meeting? Coffee? Lunch gathering? After-work drinks? Board dinner, then drinks? It’s nice to connect socially during and after work, and smart office managers will be looking for a variety of coffee, restaurant, and bar options close to the office (brownie points if one of these options has a Giant Jenga).
• Sweat It Out. They say sitting is the new smoking. But aside from employees missing work for doctors’ appointments, it actually helps companies increase productivity through improved engagement, focus, and overall happiness. Employees are now looking to squeeze in some gym time during lunch breaks or in the afternoons, so this will be helpful for employers. Highlight all the gyms and fitness classes nearby and check with your team – your company may be able to offer a discount to affiliates.
• Chop the Chores. Employees are people, too, which means they often need to handle mundane things for their home. People’s ability to perform basic chores and errands like picking up medication, groceries, dry cleaning are all impacted by when they arrive and leave the office. Explore how your current employees are using the nearby stores to make their home life easier. We’ve heard positive feedback for spaces near popular grocery chains Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Fairway, and Gristedes in New York City.

Remember to Be Yourself

Office sharing is an amazing opportunity to surround yourself with another team who has similar values, but is working on a different problem. Your space reflects your team’s personality, and vice versa! Here are just a few examples of ways to really showcase your unique company:

• Why You Do What You Do. Changing the world is hard work, and you want as many allies as you can find to aid in your pursuit of greatness. Let others know the problem you’re trying to solve, and why you’re passionate about that problem. You may just find the next partner to 10x your business.
• Office Fun. Teams bond in many different ways, and activities or games are always a fun excuse to stick together after work. Happy hours and game nights are very popular. We’ve seen teams host weekly Dungeons and Dragons nights, and others with more light hearted, Cards Against Humanity, or our new favorite, Joking Hazard.
• Extend an Invitation. It may be obvious that anyone interested in your space should inquire, but we’ve found that some friendly language in your listing actually encourages people to click that tour button and reach out to you. So don’t forget to thank them for checking you out, and invite them to connect!

What do you think? Do you have any tips that we missed? Agree with us? Disagree with us? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!

Tech markets are thriving all over the country, everywhere from Silicon Valley to lesser known havens like Charlotte, NC, Houston, TX, and Madison, WI. Millennials are the driving force behind much of this growth, and their preferences in both the workplace and the communities they live in is shaping commercial real estate nationwide.

Understanding this force begins with examining how millennials are impacting tech-talent, and it ends with a glimpse of how millennial preferences will play a heavy hand in shaping the future of real estate.

Tech markets are still in growth mode

While some people fear Silicon Valley and the tech boom are slowing down, CBRE’s 2016 Scoring Tech Talent report reveals tech jobs have grown by over 27% in the US over the last five years. When looking at the largest markets, the San Francisco Bay Area enjoyed the highest growth at 61.5% and Baltimore was only a fraction behind. But the underdogs grew even faster—among the top small tech markets, Charlotte, NC, saw job explosion at over 74% while Nashville came in second place with just less than 68%.

This growth is huge, but not surprising—technology is truly the lifeblood of business and the backbone of commerce. The internet provides the space for companies to compete, meet their consumers and provide services, and while tech workers account for only 3.5% of the US workforce, the sector has grown by more than three times the national average. That growth has not been even across age groups—a huge part of it is coming from millennials.

Tech markets impact commercial real estate more than most

Tech markets are characterized by large concentrations of highly educated workers and huge, growing millennial populations. They also stand to impact local markets more than other industries because their employees receive upwards of double the average non-tech salary. Five of the largest tech markets have seen their millennial populations jump by over 10% since 2009, and Washington, D.C. experienced a near 26% spike. In Madison, WI, Pittsburgh and Boston (all growing tech markets) millennials make up almost 25% of the entire urban population.

Millennials have different preferences than older generations when it comes to working and living, and as they continue to enter the workforce, amass wealth and impact their local markets those preferences are going to leave a mark on real estate—by 2020 millennials are expected to make up a staggering 40-50% of the workforce.

One huge shift from the past is the millennial desire to live in cities. Millennials have shown a strong preference for city-life over suburbia and this has helped revitalize, or gentrify, depending on who you ask, downtown neighborhoods all over the country. Now-trendy neighborhoods in Manhattan like Chelsea and the East Village are no longer places to run from, but places most people can’t even afford. The same is true of Silicon Valley, where tech-talent has boosted the median monthly rent to $4,547, according to data from Zillow. That’s the highest median rent among the nation’s 50 largest cities. Another millennial trademark is the open office, which has spread far beyond just millennials—currently 70% of American employees spend their working lives in open floor plan offices, according to International Facility Management.

One size does not fit all

Real estate is changing, and office space is changing along with it. Millennials in tech markets are a major force driving that change thanks to the financial power of the tech industry and the sheer mass of millennials in, and continuing to enter, the workforce. As millennials keep bending real estate to fit their specific needs and preferences, one thing is clear—one size does not fit all.

The move towards increased diversity in the office, whether that mean open offices, private offices, coworking or more, is only in its early stages. And it’s no coincidence the tech industry has been behind many office space and real estate breakthroughs, from bikes all over Facebook’s campus to gourmet meals and massages at Google. Investors, employees and CEOs alike would do well to take note of the shifting real estate landscape and recognize the vital role millennial tech-talent is playing. While it would be a daunting task to try and predict exactly where this road is leading, one thing is clear—millennial trends and preferences are an intimate part of tech-talent, and understanding those trends is a look into the future of commercial real estate and the modern office.

For more on how millennials are shaping the workforce? Check out our webinar, co-hosted by TriNet.

We all know offices are moving away from the cubicle-plus-corner-office style of the late 1960’s-on towards greater openness, but that change is coming in many forms. Before deciding which office design is right for your firm, it’s helpful to take the pulse of the current market and see which designs are flourishing. Below are the top office space design trends you’re likely to see in 2016.

#1: Open offices

PivotDesk host company, J Frankl Associates provides an excellent example of open office collaboration.

Loved by millennials, these offices are popular thanks to the benefits of collaboration. And while they originally became popular among tech startups, they’ve grown so popular that even companies from traditional industries like law firms are embracing the advantages they offer. Canadian general practice law firm, McCarthy Tétrault, replaced their private offices with more than 62,000 square feet of open meeting space, mainly to take advantage of the benefits of increased collaboration. The firm also says, on top of collaboration, their clients are serviced more effectively in the new setup—the expertise of the entire firm is literally all around them and at their disposal.

#2: Blended offices

Raven Office Centers, a PivotDesk host out of San Francisco, is the perfect balance between collaboration and concentration.

Blended offices incorporate a little bit of everything, and if they get the mix right, they can offer the best of all worlds. Of course, what the best of all worlds looks like depends on which firm is using the space, but these offices tend to offer a mix of private, semi-private and open workspaces. This office design recognizes that there are benefits and drawbacks to all major office layouts, everything from cubicles to completely open spaces, and aims to combine them in a way so as to capture the benefits each offers while negating the negatives through diversity.

An excellent example of a blended office in action is NYC-based Barbarian Group, which took the long white worktable common in creative agencies and expanded it to create a “Superdesk” that winds through the whole office. The desk allows everyone in the company to work at the same table, yet the environment surrounding that table transforms as it moves through the office from open space to semi-private space. Ultimately, the desk enters into cave-like nooks where more introverted/heads-down employees can work in privacy.

#3: Culture driven offices

The Havenly office space in Denver reflects the company’s knack for interior design.

Just as company culture is critical to the functioning of a business, it should also be an important aspect of office design. Many creative businesses rely on the sort of creativity that comes from happenstance interactions between employees, and office design can help facilitate those sorts of interactions. But it’s not as simple as throwing in a foosball table—it’s more about building a space where employees can run into each other in such a way that encourages the interactions a company’s culture depends on. What the actual space looks like depends on what type of culture a company has, it could be anything from the slides in Google’s offices that connect different floors to the creative table used at Barbarian Group. Whatever it looks like, company culture should inform aspects of physical office design.

#4: Convenient offices

Located in the center of Midtown, New York City, PivotDesk host, Bene Rialto is in the middle of it all.

Thanks to technological advances, many jobs can be done anywhere. Whether than means at home or in your favorite city, this simple fact is forcing employers to consider convenience in a way they largely haven’t had to before. Enticing employees to actually want to show up to work is important, and two easy ways to do that are making work fun and convenient. This means planning offices in close proximity to cafes, bars, banks, gyms and pharmacies. If an office is in a centralized location, employees can carry out personal chores like grabbing their dry cleaning during lunch a break and hitting the gym immediately after work. Cutting down on wasted time commuting is essential for employees with today’s time-strapped schedules. Plus, saving time helps ease stress while making employees more productive.

#5: Outdoor spaces

CenterPoint Media is a host located in the heart of the NYC Flower District and features a sweet rooftop.

Unless you’re a park ranger, few work in offices that are entirely outdoors. But many progressive companies, including a number of PivotDesk hosts, are building improved outdoor spaces to bring the benefits nature provides to the modern worker. Facebook’s headquarters, for example, offers employees access to a free, full service bike repair shop in the middle of the campus, and the company encourages employees to bike everywhere they can. Prudential Financial’s newest building in Newark, NJ, has a walking park on top of its cafeteria so employees can get some fresh air during breaks. Employers are emphasizing physical activity and being outdoors more than ever before, and more than that, they are providing the space to make it happen. This helps employees lead healthier lifestyles—and healthier employees are more productive.

#6: Empathetic offices

Java Studios prides themselves on the accessibility of their New York City office space.

More than simply adhering to the requirements in the Americans With Disabilities Act and building wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, some office designers are going above and beyond to make sure their layouts are comfortable and accessible to seniors and those with disabilities. Dallas-based architecture firm, Corgan, had its employees wear suits that simulated what it would be like to be 40 years older—it included weights to mimic decreased muscle mass and goggles to impose poor vision—so they could see what challenges current designs may pose to seniors. The researchers found room for improvement, and they are now placing restrooms away from high traffic areas, adding benches and chairs along hallways and lengthening escalator landings for better balance. It’s important to remember that, while millennials are having a profound impact on office design, offices need to be comfortably accessible to everyone.

#7: Offices designed for sharing

Los Angeles host, The Park, offers growth flexibility for all of their guests.

Many leaseholders are building spaces for sharing into their office floor plans, as a way of planning ahead for office sharing as hosts. About 90% of businesses have excess space when they first move into a space, so office sharing is a great way to offset costs as they grow into their space. By putting aside space for guest teams, setting up multiple wifi networks and carving out extra meeting spaces, companies are making the office sharing experience smoother and more beneficial for both hosts and guests. 

It’s not a step that should be taken lightly, however. For many growing companies, a standard office lease may not fit their growth plan or their budget, and may be more of a headache than an accomplishment.

Here are five common problems that you should keep in mind when considering a traditional lease.

Problem #1: Finding the Right Fit

All over the US, vacancy rates are reaching shocking lows, and rental rates are naturally creeping up. Businesses—both large and small—are finding it harder than ever to find a space that can fill their needs without breaking the bank.

Unless a startup or small businesses is looking outside of the major markets (which could result in easier growth), the chances of finding an affordable, high-quality office space is increasingly unlikely. And even if they can find such a space, many small businesses aren’t able to satisfy a host’s financial requirements, unless they have a personal guaranty. For many businesses, the major markets like DC, LA and NYC may present the best business opportunities, but without easy office access, these opportunities can pass them by.

Problem #2: The Frustrating Negotiation Process

Simply put, commercial leases are some of the most complex legal documents a business will have to deal with. While bickering over rental rates, buildout allowances and operating expenses is a nightmare in itself, many leases come with various complex clauses and terms that must be scoured and scrutinized with legal counsel for weeks in order for both parties to know what they’re getting into. After all, don’t you want to know if your repair and maintenance fees are included in your rent or not? Or, if you have reasonable exit options should you choose to leave earlier than expected? 

All of these issues can be ignored and become huge, expensive hurdles down the line if the business doesn’t devote considerable effort and money (both of which they may not have) to negotiating the best agreement.

Problem #3: The Waiting Game

Finding an office space and negotiating a lease also takes a considerable amount of time that many businesses just don’t have. Not only does it takes months, if not years, to find a space that works for you, but you’ll also need to spend a considerable amount of time negotiating the lease. With all that time and frustration, many businesses may settle for any space that fits them or overlook countless dangerous clauses in their lease so they can simply get past the whole process and focus on their work. This, of course, can come back to bite them.

Problem #4: A 5 to 10-Year Ball and Chain

Most commercial lease terms last from three to ten years, with some even going as long as twenty years or longer. For companies just starting out and experiencing rapid growth, many of these leases may be too long for them to stick around in one place. These agreements quickly become an albatross around the lease holder’s necks as they pay for too little space where they can’t work effectively, or a huge space that eats up their bottom line. Simply put, the longer the lease, the less flexibility a business will have to adapt and change as they grow, and today’s market is full of companies that explode in popularity overnight (or the opposite). A long-term lease will also prevent a business from cutting costs if market rents drop, forcing them to pay above market rates for their space. This is why many companies, large and small, are growing increasingly hesitant to make the multi-year commitment.

Problem #5: High Costs, From Move-In to Move-Out

If you couldn’t tell already, the leasing experience is an expensive, exhaustive endeavor. In fact, office space is the second highest cost a business will face after payroll. Everything from security deposits, property taxes and legal fees to renovations, common area maintenance fees and moving companies can kill a business just as they were about to find their financial footing.

An Easier Alternative?

For all of these reasons, we’re seeing many companies of all sizes starting to veer away from the standard lease in favor of exploring more flexible office experiences like coworking and shared office spaces. These newer solutions allow companies to quickly and easily set-up shop in every major market for much less cost and hassle than a traditional lease requires. With simple, streamlined systems and structured terms, office guests can invest their time, effort and money into their businesses, and have the flexibility to move to another office or even to a new city without the long-term commitments of the traditional lease. Simply put, the new wave of shared offices options are allowing startups and multinational corporations alike to not only access all the amenities they need at an affordable price, but to work in an environment that fosters their own unique culture.

1. How to pitch

2. Hiring and firing

3. Office space

PivotDesk CEO and Co-Founder, David Mandell has seen it all throughout his career as a serial startup founder and Techstars mentor. Through these lessons, his goal is to inform entrepreneurs based on his own past successes and failures.

Part 3 in the series focuses on a task most founders dread: Office space.

When growing companies graduate from their accelerator program or choose to leave  coworking in search of space of their own, they are quickly confronted with the harsh reality that leased office space is the second costliest expense they will face after head count.

Add to that the notoriously static nature of the commercial real estate industry, and the challenge grows even more daunting.

Between securing a trustworthy broker, finding space, negotiating a contract, completing buildout and moving, the process can take months. And when you’re taking your top people off their normal responsibilities to manage the task, you’re not just wasting time, you’re wasting precious human capital.

PivotDesk CEO, David Mandell, has been through the struggle of finding office space many times and he’s ready to share what he’s learned.

Despite that criticism the open office isn’t here by accident. On the contrary, there are a lot of things to love about the open office layout.

What the open office gets right

Open-office spaces tend to be the favorite among millennials, tech firms and startups, and they’re becoming more normal in traditional businesses too. There are a lot of good reasons for this—open offices promote interaction among employees of all levels and functions, helping facilitate greater levels of teamwork and innovation.

Open seating is also perfect for organizations that are looking for the easy, casual, and often profitable collaboration between different parties that comes from the coworking environment or even the shared office space environment. Coworking is expanding at the speed of light—WeWork’s latest valuation hit a staggering $16B, and smaller coworking hosts are putting their own spin on the latest office-space breakthrough. Yet open office-floor plans aren’t found only in coworking spaces—major employers like American Express and Goldman Sachs are also opening up their offices, and Michael Bloomberg brought the model to city hall in New York City in his time as mayor.

The maximization of space has a lot to do with that. For some firms, that means using easily-movable furniture and unassigned seats to make the most of their space, while at the same time making collaboration easy. All you need to do is move a table and change your seat to form a new work-group.

Maximizing space not only makes it easier to work together—it saves money. Open offices require less square footage per employee, since employees are all sitting together and moving around throughout the day. And companies are really starting to pack people in…by 2017 American offices are expected to allot just 151 square feet per employee—that’s down from 225 feet in 2010.

Not everybody is on board

When some employees hear terms like “promoting interaction,” “teamwork” and “fluid offices,” what they’re thinking is “goodbye privacy” and “noise noise noise.” The number one complaint about the open office is how the fluid layout erodes nearly all visual and auditory privacy, and these aren’t trivial complaints—a recent study found almost 40% of employees in open offices wish they had more privacy while another discovered workers in these layouts are less focused and more stressed.

Many employees intuitively know they are more productive when they have privacy. Nobody disagrees that cubicles are ugly, but they do allow you to work in a mostly-private space while at the same time being accessible to your colleagues—both good things.

On another level, older employees remember the days when getting a corner office was almost as good as getting a promotion. In that model, the space you occupy largely reflected your value and level of achievement within the firm. After working their whole careers and now finding themselves in comfortable, prestigious lodgings, many older employees are understandably unhappy about relinquishing them.

What is the middle ground?

There are benefits and drawbacks to the open office, just as there are to private offices or cubicles. Whether an open office boosts creativity, integration and teamwork or drains an employee’s concentration while adding more stress, is ultimately connected to what type of work that businesses does.

Open seating is particularly effective for employees engaged with creativity and marketing, and other tasks that benefit from easy collaboration. Then there are those jobs, the more “heads down” professions, that don’t benefit from constant interactivity—I’m talking about people like programmers, and number crunchers. On top of that, there are HR professionals, legal departments and those who handle accounts payable. These positions are not even close to ideal for open offices since they require confidentiality.

Despite the benefits to open offices, and the gains they are making in the modern workplace, some jobs, and people, require privacy. Whether that’s for productivity or confidentiality, it means open seating should not completely replace the private office. At the same time open offices provide boosts to roles that rely on interactions with coworkers, they help foster innovation and they ease pressure on the bottom line. Those are big successes, and because of them, we can expect the open office to continue to gain ground. So, the open-office space trend isn’t heading towards conquest—it’s heading towards integration.

The modern office is anything but a zero sum game, and it’s not terribly difficult to combine the best each office layout has to offer into one modern office. Offices will continue to open up, the benefits of interactivity and reduced costs are too much to ignore, but most offices will also be equipped with private rooms. However those rooms will likely not be reserved for senior executives, instead they will serve the practical needs of departments, and individuals, that require confidentiality and quiet.

From flexible office space services like PivotDesk and WeWork to ping-pong tables and collaborative spaces, here are five workplace trends inspired by millennials:

Work-life integration instead of work-life balance

We all spend a lot of time at work. Once we leave work, we’re still accessible by text, calls and email. In the face of this reality, many workplaces are replacing strives for “work-life balance” with “work-life integration,” which, as the name implies, is more about figuring out how to integrate the two rather than separate them. Like all changes in the work-world, this change is impacting work spaces.

The famous Googleplex is a well-known example—with nap rooms, gourmet meals on campus and massages available 24/7, why would you want to leave? At least that’s the idea, but employees still have families and want to spend time with them, so this balance won’t be totally achieved by making the workplace more appealing than home, because it won’t ever become that. But as more and more startups, especially in the tech world, mimic Google’s response to this dilemma, it’s clear the change in office space is only in its initial phases when it comes to figuring out work-life integration. As more and more millennials enter the workforce, we’ll see where this trend heads.

Fun is important

Millennials, presumably like every other generation, want to have fun—but millennials are changing office space to make it happen. It’s not uncommon these days to find basketball hoops in corporate parking lots, ping pong tables in common areas and beer next to the coffee in the break room. In many ways, this is one important part of the answer to the goal of work-life integration, and while it doesn’t solve the problem alone, who cares? There’s nothing wrong with some fun. And it’s also productive—in a Great Place to Work survey it was discovered that companies who change their office spaces to accommodate fun are around 15% more innovative and experience higher net profits.

Communication goes both ways

Another thing that survey found was that innovative, millennial-friendly workplaces choose to focus on two-way communication. One company that does this especially well is the insurance firm Acuity, which includes all employees, regardless of their level, in the firm’s strategic planning. This opportunity for communication from the bottom-up, middle to middle and the familiar top-down, all at the same time, is millennial-inspired and helps break down some of the most formidable barriers in the workplace. It also has facilitated Acuity’s innovation—the firm has been ranked the strongest innovator among property and casualty insurers on InformationWeek 500 for 10 years and counting.

Integrating telecommuting

When you think of a flexible, millennial friendly workplace, chances are, telecommuting comes to mind.

While telecommuting is rarely a full-time replacement for coming into the office at least occasionally, it is something millennials appreciate and tend to want more of—and they’re getting it. Offices are adapting to accommodate telecommuting, and they’ve been making changes to office space to better integrate it into the daily workflow. That means utilizing conferencing software like Skype on a regular basis, not just on rare circumstances. It means firms are setting aside conference rooms in largely open offices to hold remote-conferencing meetings, while employees keep the software handy on their laptops for smaller interactions.

Offices are opening up

Many of the millennial-inspired trends in office space have their roots in the open office. When millennials have their way, the cubicles of the late 60’s-on come down and are replaced by open, community-driven office spaces. And of course, coworking spaces like WeWork are popping up all over the country as well.

This shift toward collaboration vs. privacy is taking place in all sorts of firms from Goldman Sachs to PwC, and it’s happening across the board for a reason—it fosters interaction, teamwork and innovation, all while cutting costs. According to the International Facility Management Association, around 70% of US offices have some type of open floor plan.

Yet older employees often like these offices less, as they tend to see office space as fitting with an employee’s level of achievement and value. They are also unhappy with the lack of visual and auditory privacy, and many millennials agree on that front—a recent study found nearly 40% of employees in an open office wish they had more privacy. Another study concluded workers in an open office are less focused and experience higher levels of stress. Yet most open offices have private space set aside where employees can have more quiet time, even if they aren’t permanently assigned rooms. And many offices are learning that perhaps a combination of openness mixed with optional private rooms is the way forward.

Open offices are in many ways the trademark of the millennial impact on office space, but it doesn’t start and end there. Bringing fun into the workplace, figuring out how to best integrate work and life, making telecommuting a real option and fostering effective communication between all levels of employees are things everyone, not just millennials, can enjoy. In fact, despite the stereotype that says otherwise, millennials aren’t selfish—their impacts on office space benefit employees of all ages.

In their piece titled, Digging Deeper: What Coworking Tells Us About The Future of Commercial Real Estate, Amol Sarva and Jayson White predict that the shifts we’re seeing in businesses seeking flexibility over traditional office leases are merely, “The tip of the iceberg for an incredible wave of change coming to the commercial real estate industry.”

They posture that businesses are taking a tip from freelancers and independent contractors and choosing flexible options like coworking and office sharing as a way of savings money and reducing risk:

“From large companies to fledgling startups, the emerging office customer will increasingly seek flexible work environments that can offer more than just a desk. The key here is to consider the decisions smaller freelancers are making about coworking; they represent what major tenants and corporations are also starting to choose upstream. Employees are now shaping the way companies go about buying real estate and office space: from the ground up.”

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons more and more businesses are going the way of the freelancer and opting for flexible office space solutions…

More bang for your buck

Premium space on 5th Ave. with Iridium Consulting.

It’s easy to see why businesses are shying away from traditional leasing — typical rents in New York are over $70 per square foot, but shared office space can easily cost half that, without extra overhead expenses like cable/internet, cleaning services and other utilities.

Yet, it’s not JUST about saving as much dough as possible…

We’ve found that PivotDesk customers, are happy to pay for premium shared space, knowing that they will still come out ahead in terms of cost. And firms that would have to settle for economy digs in a traditional lease agreement are finding that they can afford a higher-level shared property.

The median price of a booking this year is 75% greater than last. This partly reflects the general rise in office rents throughout the market, but it also indicates that our clients are tending to book more high-end listings.

This increase in the average prices paid for shared space also says something about the types of firms that are giving office sharing a try. While our clients were once primarily small startups and even individuals, we are now seeing more interest from larger, more established businesses. In fact, over the last year, larger businesses have come to make up 22% of our bookings and we continue to see that % increase.

So, larger companies, with larger budgets, are beginning to see the benefits of office sharing and are taking part in greater numbers. These companies are able to pay for premium space and still save money over traditional lease agreements.

Flexibility will set you free

Sleek space without the commitment at Circulate.

As Sarva and White point out, businesses are wising up to the importance of making agile real estate decisions:

“Young businesses need to be nimble in order to succeed. Being stuck in a years-long lease is a nightmare for companies with hopes of scaling up or moving elsewhere. Even a five year lease can be too long for many larger companies. Convoluted leases with hidden catches can also be a problem.”

Many firms choose office sharing in order to buy time to build their company culture and assemble a stellar team. Without the commitment, fees, and upkeep associated with a commercial lease, firms can invest their capital in staff and in customer service. The money saved over leasing allows firms to hire top employees, while a well-appointed workspace helps attract those employees in the first place. They’re able to find space that fits the image they have for the company, often in more stylish and well-equipped locations than they could consider securing through a traditional lease.

More established companies can benefit as well, setting up in high-end space without high-end expense. You don’t have to compromise on style to find affordable office space.

With the rise of mobility technology that allows us to work anywhere we can get a wifi signal, who wants be tied to a stuffy office space?

As a result, our mobile workforce is undoubtedly on the rise.

Yet, how can we explain why demand for office space in the current market is higher than ever, leading to astronomical rents in cities like New York, San Francisco and Boston?

PivotDesk CEO, David Mandell, examined this conundrum in his keynote speech ahead of our second Future of Work panel, co-hosted by Managed by Q, and KISI.

For David’s full take on the future of the office, watch the complete recording. 

David started by examining these two seemingly contradictory facts confounding futurists:

Our mobile workforce is larger than ever with 50% of American workers holding a job that is compatible with remote work, while demand for office space in business epicenters like New York City and Mountain View is higher than ever. 

And if the office is truly dead, then why are innovative mega-firms like Apple and Google investing millions in premium office space?

Google, for example, is planning for a new 600,000 square foot campus in Mountain View complete with moveable buildings and a green-path that will make the property look more like a city park than an office park.

This might seem like an extreme case, but businesses all over the country are transforming their office spaces to be more employee friendly.

The future of the office, it seems, is not to disappear, but to exist for the purpose of improving the lives of employees through greater connectivity and comfort allowing them to be more productive than ever.

If you consider what the office used to be, this evolution makes a lot of sense.

In the days of Mad Men, the office existed to bolster employee status (getting the corner office mattered!) and the overall external image of the company.

Big fancy office = powerful company.

Now, we can see that the purpose of the office has transitioned from supporting an external image, to promoting internal culture and company happiness — which yes, at times might involve working outside of the office.

Businesses have finally started to recognize that people want to work where they feel comfortable. And if those businesses are successful in creating spaces where employees feel both productive and happy, the office will likely remain an essential — yet variable — fixture in the workplace of the future.

For David’s final take-aways on the future of the office, watch the complete keynote. 

Office sharing is on the rise, especially in locations like NYC and San Francisco where the cost of commercial real estate remains astronomically high, in large part due to demand driven by startups and other SMB’s scrambling for office space. Since starting PivotDesk in 2012, we’ve helped companies in NYC save $3.3 million on office space costs by sharing their unused space. That’s REAL money. In one shining example, host company, Techstars NYC has made over half a million dollars using PivotDesk to share their unused desks. 

With many notable “unicorns” faltering, and experts beginning to foresee the burst of the current tech bubble, it’s no wonder smart businesses are re-thinking their office space spend. We’ve seen demand for shared office space more than double compared to the beginning of 2015.

Often, we focus on stories of guest companies finding their ideal office space with PivotDesk, sometimes in less than a day — but what about the host companies? We’re doing a deep-dive on the perks of office sharing for those companies that choose to make the most of their office space spend by sharing unused desks on our site.

Chicago’s Piece & Co. boasts bright, sunny workspaces with tons of amenities.

Why it works

It’s pretty simple: Office sharing has tremendous benefits for businesses seeking to build agility into their business plans so they can concentrate on growth. Flexibility, cost savings, and reduced risk make it a great option for companies of all types and sizes. Host companies like Piece & Co. featured above, benefit from making money on their excess space while remaining in complete control over who is in their space and when. And if a host needs their space back, all they need to do is give 30 days notice.

If color is your thing, check out FreshPlanet in NYC.

How it works

Often, shared office space services are offered by companies that have leased a space that is larger than they need — which is very common among growing businesses. No one wants to move every 6 months!

Other companies experience downsizing or restructuring and suddenly find themselves with empty desks. Whatever the reason, it’s never ideal to be saddled with the costs of leasing space that’s not being fully utilized. Office sharing is a way for these firms to offset their costs by hosting other companies or individuals in the space.

Of course, there are a number of ways to make money back on unused space, from emailing your network to working with a broker to sublet empty space —  but we’re a bit partial to our own service…but only because it works so well for businesses of all sizes and phases!

Sharing space on the PivotDesk platform is designed to be incredibly simple and efficient — think of it as a stand-in office manager. Posting your excess space on the site can be done in a matter of minutes, from there, we’ll help match your space with potential guest companies. Guest companies request tours before booking, so you always have control of who gets to share your space. When you’ve finished vetting potential guest companies and you’re ready to book — we take care of contracts, monthly billing and deposits. 

NYC host, Loverly is looking for like-minded companies to share their Chelsea space.

The proof is in the numbers

The idea has really caught on, and hosts are reaping benefits from the office sharing model. Host companies on our platform are making more with PivotDesk than ever before — we’ve already seen a 23% increase in booking value in 2016 compared to early 2015.

And as more and more businesses are realizing the benefits of flexible office sharing, demand for space has continued to increase, especially among larger companies, which now make up 22% of our bookings. As such, it’s not unusual for hosts to earn $40,000 a year or more, just for filling unused space in the office. 

So it would appear that the word is out. Not only is office sharing a boon for companies looking for affordable space without long-term commitments; it’s also a great option for the host companies. 

The only question left to address is, what are you waiting for? Share your space here.