It will vary a lot depending on whether you are in a small town or a
large one. Most business space leases start out at about 3 years
because most of the leasing companies expect to do some modifications
for the tenant and want to know the tenant will be around to recoup the
costs. however, there are some cases where you can get a single year
lease if you look around. Single year tends to be expensive though (all
commercial space tends to be overpriced in my opinion...a lot of cash
for an essentially empty room). I haven't seen any "month to month" on
commercial space but it may exist if you look long enough.

Most commercial space is rented on a "triple net" basis (often called
NNN). This means that the tenants of the units share ALL costs for
maintenance, water, outside lighting, management fees, etc. This can
really add up. For example, if the landlord decides the parking lot
needs re-paving or the building painting, you are stuck for you
proportion of the costs (even if you don't think it needed to be done).

Currently, my 1536 square foot place costs about 1100 a month (seattle
area) and the NNN is another couple of hundred a month. This may give
you an idea of the costs of commercial space in a fairly large
metropolitan area.

Oh yea...one of the most common lawsuits is broken business leases.
Don't expect to back out of a lease early in the commercial end without
getting nailed.

I would avoid true commercial space and see if there is someone willing
to lease "barn" space or something similar. The other option is to shop
around for someone who actually owns the space and uses most for their
own business. They may have some surplus space they can rent you with
fewer problems.

Koz

AL wrote:

Has anyone tried renting industrial space for hobby use? My little one-car
garage just doesn't cut it anymore. Do the leasing companies only deal with
business entities? Has anyone done this before? Any pitfalls? I know
insurance might be difficult to obtain, but I'm not sure about anything
else.