Regarding southern California office leases and things we should know
Hey Everyone!

We are closing on our new commercial property in 2 weeks that comes with 22 executive office suites and a warehouse that we will be using to operate our t-shirt printing business from.

Eager to hear feedback from others on things we need to take into consideration when renting out the office units, verbiage on the lease agreements we should add, or experiences they would like to share as we look for new tenants!

Each executive office suite is 700 square feet and will include all utilities since each unit is not individually metered.

The property is located in southern California (Inland Empire).
[{"id": "gsrultj", "text": "For the love of god, do not use commercial lease forms like Air CRE. Hire a good lawyer and have them draft a sample lease agreement. \n\nAlso, I highly recommend engaging a real estate broker for your leasing needs. You *can* do it yourself, but ask yourself - do you really want to?", "replies": [{"id": "gsruvfq", "text": "Thank you so much for the feedback - We were actually considering hiring a property management company to handle this or keep it with in the family. Out of curiosity, would you prefer to go with a real estate broker or a commercial property manager to handle all of the tenants?", "replies": [{"id": "gssnz66", "text": "Use a property manager. Few brokers would bother spending the time for such small commissions.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}, {"id": "gsrw3wv", "text": "Furthermore, why would you not recommend the AIR CRE form? My landlord on my existing property (before I purchased my own warehouse) used the AIR CRE form so I'm curious to know why you are opposed to this", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "gsugk3o", "text": "1. *\"We don't charge by the square foot.  Our lease rates are per unit\"*.\n2. Annual increases of CPI or 4%, whichever is higher. No negative rate adjustments.\n3. Do not hire a property manager.  *Be* the property manager.  You're in the building.  The tenants are all going to come to your office when something is wrong anyway, you're going to end up doing 80% of the work (at minimum, being a middle man) and from the tenants perspective, hearing *\"you need to call Nancy at Property Management Group*\" will just feel rude to the tenants.  (Trust me on this).  At 15,000 sf, you can handle everything that needs to be done just fine. (plus....you need to learn your building so you don't get robbed by vendors).\n4. Speaking of vendors; don't lock in to any in the first 5 years.  Get at least 5 bids on everything above $500.00....not to save money but...to learn from them.  At some point you'll know everything there is to know about HVAC, latex or oil based paint, linoleum or Pergo, and a million other things.\n5. Ask stupid questions. Lots of them. Listen to every answer, even if you know the person giving you the answer is an idiot.  Occasionally they'll offer kernels spun from gold. \n6. Use this word a lot: \"*Why?*\".  You'll be amazed at what you'll learn.\n7. Keep the landscaping, parking lot, sidewalks and ALL glass looking sharp.  They're the first thing your tenants (and their Guests) see on their way in, and the last thing they see on their way out. You want both memories to be stellar at all times.\n8. Charge more than anyone else in your market and treat your tenants like gold.  Keep the place spotless. Respond quickly.  Do more than you promise.  Every time. (And, when new prospective tenants say \"*you're more expensive than* ***anyone*** *else!!!\"* don't explain yourself.  Just say \"*ayep*\".)\n9. Come to this forum and click on anything related to real estate.  Read every post. Believe about 20% of what you read, but know, the other 80% is still worth reading.\n\nThere's about another 30 screens worth but others will add to this and...these are baseline items.\n\nDo all the above and in 5 years you'll be buying another place (instead of losing sleep like the next 2 years :) )\n\n(And if you do the above, your tenants will never leave unless they go out of business or grow larger than your building can deliver on...which is hopefully why you'll want to buy another building).", "replies": [{"id": "gtfdr16", "text": "This was AMAZING, AMAZING feedback! Probably the best feedback I have ever received before. I shared this in our family group chat and we were blown away! Thank you so much for this! I just shot you a personal DM as well!", "replies": [{"id": "gtfv08s", "text": "*^(It's a gift, and a curse.)*", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]