Renting Office Space on the Cheap{0}
An article that I found very interesting was about a Canadian software company, Brightspark, who came up with the idea to help companies rent the extra space directly to other for short-term use. The idea evolved as Brightspark noticed that many tech companies had tons of extra space available. Randy Busch, vice president of marketing at Brightspark believes that at the beginning these companies rented big office spaces with the intent to grow, but the recession changed their plans. Some companies even paid in advance a 5-year lease. Today, these same companies are unable to sublet the extra space available.
According to The Economist, office vacancy rates are on the rise and for the 2009 second quarter it increased to 23%. Unfortunately, these are not good news for those who are trying to get extra cash in times of recession. Especially when the same report found that office vacancies in midtown New York were approximately 10%.
To help companies make some profits with all that extra space, Brightspark created a web site called iStopOver. The nice thing about this web site is that lets people rent the excess space that businesses have such as cubicles, offices, meeting rooms, presentation rooms, warehouses, boardrooms, studios, and even parking spots. According to this article a furnished cubicle at an ad agency on East 24th Street, rents for $650 per month.
iStopOver was created to serve all people’s needs and wallets. It also has a service for travelers who want to save money on hotels and are willing to try something different as to rent a room in someone’s home, but a t a huge discount.
iStopOver is the place on the internet for directly renting excess capacity in homes and offices. When you find the perfect place where you want to stay in, the interaction and rental process is directly between the Host and the Guest secured by iStopOver with no risk.
iStopOver offers a new innovative way to use the extra space while making profits.
King, Rachel. (2009, Aug. 13). Renting Office Space on the Cheap. BusinessWeek. Retrieved Aug. 29, 2009, from http://www.businessweek.com/technology/technology_at_work/