
Ask HN: Using a rented apartment for office space? - HomeOffice
I&#x27;m a bootstrapped founder of a five-person startup; we&#x27;ve been growing well but we&#x27;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.<p>For a variety of reasons, physical office space is non-negotiable but market rates (in Boston) are high. To cut costs, we&#x27;re considering looking at getting an apartment and housing our startup in there, in addition to probably a founder living there.<p>Does anyone have experience with this? We&#x27;ve checked with local laws, and it seems ok as long as the lease doesn&#x27;t prohibit it, but would love to hear other&#x27;s experiences.
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patio11
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.

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akg_67
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.

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JayNeely
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...](http://bostonstartupsguide.com/guide/boston-coworking-spaces-
roundup/)

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pavornyoh
Have you looked into Regus thus [http://www.regus.com/office-
space/boston/?q=boston&top=true](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.

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greenyoda
_" 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.

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saluki
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.

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dreamdu5t
Why have an office at all?

