Hourly or daily "home office" rental?

[theoverlook]

I recently read about someone that was providing hourly or daily (as in daytime, not 24 hours) rental of a home office - for office use only. That set off a bell in my head as an interesting opportunity for me. I have a small shop on my property that I currently use for storage and workshop duties but back in the day was an apartment wrapped around a 3-car garage. I am planning on renovating the bathroom for my use, and as part of that could easily fix up a 400sf portion of the building into an office and kitchenette area. It would be separate from the workshop areas and locked off. I have a beautiful property (3.5 acres) in a high end area. I could see some people being interested in renting the office to work from especially nowadays with work from home being so common. I have experience in renting office space, my full time (ish) job is renting out suites in my office building, but nothing like this.

What do you guys think of the viability of daily or hourly office rental? Are there any laws/regulations I should look into on it? I assume they'd be simpler since I wouldn't be letting people sleep there and wouldn't be allowing retail activity. What are the challenges you could see? Are there any existing online services that handle administration of this? (Billing, scheduling, etc)

I looked at the more corporate type office share setups in the area and what they charge. It looks like the cheapest options are around $20/hour. I would want to either do whole day only or a certain number of hours minimum, and thought to target $50/day, 15-20 days of occupancy, before it would be worth it to me. $750/mo would be a decent return and would compensate me for the hassles of building it out, managing it, and also the loss of the space that I currently use. I estimate it would cost about $4000 to bring the building up to office standards versus the current "murder apartment" look it has now. That's with me doing the work, probably about 50-75 hours of labor on top of the $4000 in materials. Some of that I want to do anyway, and it would not break my heart if I did the work and the opportunity didn't pan out.

Any thoughts? Anybody else doing this?

[trollwithamustache]

This doesn't make much sense to me... I have considered renting a real office, ie like Regus, to have a conference room/professional place to meet clients.  plus I could get a phone number with a  shared receptionist answering it to appear like a big boy firm. Regus has a coffee machine ect.

your shop doesn't offer this.

I would think if you prettied it up and had reliable internet, you could rent it out to someone who needs an office. Long term, weekly or monthly.  Limiting access hours would be a big downside for me.

But then there is zoning, ie can your tenants really have clients or subcontractors visiting all the time? (intermittent  is fine not because its legal, but because no one will notice...)

[chicagomeg]

This doesn't make much sense to me... I have considered renting a real office, ie like Regus, to have a conference room/professional place to meet clients.  plus I could get a phone number with a  shared receptionist answering it to appear like a big boy firm. Regus has a coffee machine ect.

your shop doesn't offer this.

I would think if you prettied it up and had reliable internet, you could rent it out to someone who needs an office. Long term, weekly or monthly.  Limiting access hours would be a big downside for me.

But then there is zoning, ie can your tenants really have clients or subcontractors visiting all the time? (intermittent  is fine not because its legal, but because no one will notice...)

I think it makes sense in a pandemic. I wouldn't use a Regus office right now but I'd happily use a private space 1-2 days a week just to get out of my own house. I actually looked for such options & even considered a cheap studio but couldn't quite find anything at the price point I wanted. For what it's worth, I was hoping to pay around $600/month or $20/day with internet included, although obviously that didn't end up being realistic in my area. Starting with the cost of a low price studio + internet & deriving a daily rate from there seems like another way to price it.

[Imma]

This doesn't make much sense to me... I have considered renting a real office, ie like Regus, to have a conference room/professional place to meet clients.  plus I could get a phone number with a  shared receptionist answering it to appear like a big boy firm. Regus has a coffee machine ect.

your shop doesn't offer this.

I would think if you prettied it up and had reliable internet, you could rent it out to someone who needs an office. Long term, weekly or monthly.  Limiting access hours would be a big downside for me.

But then there is zoning, ie can your tenants really have clients or subcontractors visiting all the time? (intermittent  is fine not because its legal, but because no one will notice...)

I think it makes sense in a pandemic. I wouldn't use a Regus office right now but I'd happily use a private space 1-2 days a week just to get out of my own house. I actually looked for such options & even considered a cheap studio but couldn't quite find anything at the price point I wanted. For what it's worth, I was hoping to pay around $600/month or $20/day with internet included, although obviously that didn't end up being realistic in my area. Starting with the cost of a low price studio + internet & deriving a daily rate from there seems like another way to price it.

From friends in the industry, I know lots of people rent hotel rooms for this specific purpose now. In urban areas people are going absolutely mad in small apartments with work-from-home parents and homeschooled kids. Rooms with a nice view, a good desk and high-speed internet are a perfect solution for this.

[theoverlook]

That would be my premium, I guess, compared to a Regus. Regus is shared space, shared facilities. Mine would be dedicated to only you for the whole time you have it. Kitchen with coffee, private bathroom, very quiet and secluded space with a pretty view.

A hotel room is expensive compared to my proposed rates.

@trollwithamustache : I do see your point but think it's possible that there's a niche for something like this. A receptionist answering phones doesn't have much cache in 2021. There aren't many in-person conferences going on right now. (plus I could theoretically set up part of the space to be a small 4-6 person conference room.) Other than that I can offer what Regus offers but more private, quieter, and closer to home for some people.

I would do management myself but hire out cleaning probably biweekly - coupled with a requirement that clients leave the space in reasonably clean condition on leaving.

Zoning is the big question.

Please keep input coming, especially negatives as I'm usually overly optimistic. Thanks!!

[trollwithamustache]

guys, this pandemic business is starting to subside... there is a vaccine and cases are dropping. So... from a business planning perspective OP should plan for this post pandemic world.

FYI, in a Regus type place you can get an office or cubicle that is permanently yours. Or you can take a dirty hot swapper if you don't rent the one spot full time.  WeWork was also offering reasonably priced private offices like this. I have been told, but have not verified that WeWork, despite being a disaster in the financial press, had better coffee.