Let's say you had a small manufacturing business (should prob be zoned as light-industrial) that you wanted to start as a side-job. The main expenditure would be rent and you don't want to raise a bunch of capital. You are fine with being in a crappy area and structure, you just need a cement floor, 4 walls, a door, & some electric and plumbing. 500-1000 sqft would be adequate. Staying in the Raleigh zip code is your preference. What do you do? Where do you look? How cheap could you get?

1/14/2014 1:34:09 PM

You will be find prices listed as an amount per square foot per year

http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/18452270/4904-Craftsman-Drive-Raleigh-NC/

http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/13669568/3208-Spottswood-Street-Raleigh-NC/

http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/14862158/3222-Wellington-Court-Raleigh-NC/

Prices around raleigh are listed as negotiable, or as 5-10 per square foot per year.

Even at ~10 per square foot per year, most of the office park type places are gonna want to do no smaller than 2500 SF

You are looking at around 2k a month for a large office and warehouse type combo location, for 2000-2500 square feet, plus your utilities, city and county fees, etc.

A self storage type place maxes out at a 300 SF unit, and with power and 24 hour access, you are looking at ~250 a month. And that power will be at msot a 15 amp 110 service that is shared.

I know several folks who had good luck subleasing in other cities. Find a large industrial park with buisnesses that rent a whole non subdivided warehouse. The one guy ran a machine shop out of the back of a bearing manufacturer. They had a half of a warehouse, 15k SF that was jsut empty. He rented 2500 SF of it for like 1200 a month with power, but he basically agreed to help them if they needed stuff machined with priority.

1/14/2014 2:27:17 PM

Quote :

"You are looking at around 2k a month for a large office and warehouse type combo location, for 2000-2500 square feet, plus your utilities, city and county fees, etc."

Don't need the office space, but at 2k/month = $24k per year and we aren't looking for a second mortgage. sigh

1/14/2014 3:07:01 PM

some of the stand alone small shop ones simply list rent as negotiable. Often I see ones around here that were an auto body place or the like, and whoever owns it now just wants to at least break even on the mortgage and taxes.

A lot of the independent owned ones that are stand alone are not in a dedicated industrial park, and will often require that you handle your own building maintenance, but deals can be found.

1/14/2014 10:34:13 PM

Rent a powered storage unit.

1/15/2014 7:34:11 AM

One hangup with a storage unit would be the hours the facility is open. Considering that this is a side job, that may be something to worry about if you're looking to do this outside of typical business hours.

1/15/2014 7:54:59 AM

220v power supply and all hour access would be needed

1/15/2014 9:43:24 AM

I had a industrial park bay about 2x the size you need in Garner for years, and paid I believe 350 a month for it including power. It was a 15min drive from my apt in Raleigh, but so substantially cheaper, it was absolutely worth it.

1/15/2014 12:47:56 PM

I am not against being outside of Raleigh - just would be nice. ^ That is definitely something I would jump on.

1/15/2014 1:03:28 PM

I think the first place to look would be on Craigslist, to sub-lease from an existing tenant who isn't using all of their space.

1/17/2014 12:21:23 PM

i use commercial real estate agents when i need warehouse space, they even find me subleases

1/17/2014 12:48:33 PM

Meeting with a guy today in Apex who might sublease to us. I do have any agent that my old realtor set me up with. Going to call him next week. Just kinda weird to use a realtor to find us a cheap $500/month warehouse basically

1/17/2014 1:16:59 PM