For many kinds of businesses, searching and finding the right space to operate from is one of the most important steps that have to be carried out before starting operations. Unfortunately if you are completely new to business you may discover this to be a far more challenging task than you bargained for. Such was my experience when I tasked myself with finding an office for a now defunct venture of mine.

Beyond the occasional piece job or the selling off of our personal gadgets, none of my partners nor me (or our friends and peers) had any kind of previous “real” business experience at the time. We therefore did what any bold, ambitious and moderately educated yet clueless young people in our positions would do—we went around the city embarrassing ourselves for a few days. It turns out that renting a space in which to operate a business is quite different from renting one in which to live in. Looking back at my experiences of that time I was inspired to write this little cursory guide for anyone else who is new to business that might find themselves in need of business premises but doesn’t know where to start or how to go about the search.

Do you have the paperwork?

Buildings owned by government, parastatals, large corporations and even those managed by big real estate agencies tend to have stricter requirements for their potential tenants. In many cases, at a minimum, a certificate of incorporation and some Zimra paperwork is required in order for a prospective tenant to even be considered. While small businesses can rent spaces in such buildings and many do, these requirements are often too much for many of the barely formal businesses operating in Zimbabwe to meet.

Many small businesses in Zimbabwe also start their lives as unregistered operations. While this is perfectly legal, it also means that such businesses cannot meet the paperwork requirements for them to rent in buildings owned by the abovementioned bigger and more bureaucratic institutions. Therefore those who are dead set on starting off and running their businesses as sole proprietorships can save themselves a lot of time and trouble by sticking to buildings owned by smaller organisations, or even individuals, which tend to have less bureaucracy in their management.

Where to look

Estate agents

People start businesses with different amounts of capital. For many who decide that they have gathered enough money to start a business, it may seem that the money they have in their hands is quite significant and this is not always the case. This matters because your starting capital can actually determine who you can approach when you are looking for operating space. For instance, when you tell people that you are looking for space to rent for your business, many will refer you to estate agencies.

Estate agencies exist for a reason—they provide a service which is both crucial and convenient to building owners and their prospective tenants. In fact, there are many buildings which can only be rented through estate agencies. On the other hand, in Zimbabwe relying on estate agencies when you are a small business owner almost invariably locks you into a certain price bracket i.e. commercial rental spaces found through estate agents tend to be costlier. However, estate agencies are also usually the only way you can gain access to some of the best retail locations and upmarket office spaces so you should use them when location is particularly important for your business.

Online

Some building owners advertise their vacant spaces via posters pasted all over town. A lot more of them nowadays use the internet to advertise. Some of the best places to look online include real estate websites such as www.property.co.zw and www.property24.co.zw. Many people also use Facebook for advertising so you can also join the relevant Facebook groups to look for listings which match your requirements. Some commercial spaces available for rent are also advertised via Whatsapp. Spreading the word through friends and acquaintances remains one of the best ways of searching for anything.

Notices on buildings

You can also look around town for buildings with vacant spaces. Sometimes you can identify such buildings when they have notices on their outsides displaying this information (usually also including the details of the relevant contact people). In other cases you can tell that a space is vacant through looking through windows. Given Zimbabwe’s state of the economy, most of the larger buildings in cities also have a few office spaces available most of the time especially on the upper floors.

Who to talk to

Once you have discovered or think that a building has a vacant space, the first people you must seek out are those directly in charge of the building, its operations and maintenance. These include caretakers (usually also called building superintendents in other countries), cleaners and security guards—if they are employed by the building management instead of one of the other tenants of the building. These people will usually correctly direct you to the person in charge of the building whereas talking to other tenants or—even worse—their employees will often prove to be a frustrating and pointless exercise.