Commercial vs Residential Real Estate Broker: Who Should Lease Your Company's Office

A commercial and a residential real estate broker hold the same New York license, so the agent who found your apartment can legally show you an office. The difference is the lease. An office lease is priced on rentable square feet, rises through escalations above a base year, comes with an improvement allowance, and turns on a good guy guarantee and an assignment and sublet clause. Those are not terms a residential agent negotiates. A company leasing an office needs a commercial broker who closes office leases every month in the neighborhoods it is considering. That broker earns a commission at signing, which the landlord pays in most transactions.

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Show me NoMad office floors

Updated 2026-10-03 · Nomad Group

Can the agent who found your apartment lease your office?

Legally, yes. New York issues no separate commercial license, and nothing stops a residential agent from walking you through an office floor.

In practice the two jobs share a license and little else. A residential agent's skill is matching a person to a home and getting an application approved. A commercial broker's skill sits in the lease itself and in knowing what a given landlord will concede.

Five office lease terms a residential agent does not negotiate

Rentable square feet. Rent is charged on a figure that includes a share of the building's common areas. The loss factor is the gap between what you pay for and what you can furnish, and usable space runs 15 to 25 percent below rentable.
Escalations. Rent steps up each year, commonly by 2.5 to 3 percent, and increases in operating costs are passed through above a base year.
The improvement allowance. The landlord's money toward your buildout, with a work letter that settles who builds what and who pays if costs run over.
The good guy guarantee and the security deposit. A principal's limited personal guarantee, plus a deposit or letter of credit sized to the company's financials.
The assignment and sublet clause. Your exit if the company outgrows the floor.

Each one is negotiated. The leasing glossary explains them one at a time.

What a commercial broker knows about a neighborhood's buildings

The other half of the job is local. Take NoMad as the example: the streets above Madison Square Park, where young companies keep offices between the hotels and the restaurants. A commercial broker working there knows which floors are lofts and which sit high in a tower, how each landlord treats a young tenant, and how the N, R, W, 6, F and M trains at 23rd and 28th Streets shape a commute.

The NoMad floors below are the ones we list there now. A residential agent can open the door to any of them. Ask what the loss factor is, how much free rent the landlord might give on a three-year term, and whether the deposit can step down over time. The answers show the difference between the two professions.

Which broker a growing company needs, and how that broker is paid

A commercial broker who represents office tenants, with recent leases at your size in the neighborhoods on your list. That record matters more than the grade of license. In most transactions the landlord pays the broker fee, so choosing a specialist over a generalist usually changes nothing in what you pay.

Nomad Property Group is a licensed New York real estate broker whose listings are all Manhattan office floors. Because Nomad also offers agency leasing and owner representation, check whether a building you like is one it leases for the owner. On your search, we work for you. Our brokerage page sets out the work stage by stage.

NoMad office space available now

Live from our listings · cheapest first

4 offices are available in NoMad right now, from 5,621 to 12,500 square feet, asking $57 to $90 per square foot per year. The NoMad median is $62.

Floors: 4
Sizes: 5,621-12,500 sq ft
Asking rent: $57-$90 / sq ft
Median: $62 / sq ft

Everything available in NoMad, with photos and rents →

The full guide

This page is the short answer. The long one, with the numbers worked through, is here:

Can one real estate agent handle both my apartment and my office?

They are allowed to, since a single license covers both. Whether they should depends on how many office leases they have closed. Ask for three recent ones near your size. If the answer is a list of apartments, keep them for the apartment.

My company only needs a small office. Is a commercial broker still worth it?

Yes, because the lease does not get simpler as the floor gets smaller. A 2,000 square foot office raises the same guarantee, escalation and deposit questions as a floor many times its size, and a ten-person company has little pull to reopen a clause once it is signed.

Does a commercial broker cost a tenant more than a residential one?

Not in most cases. On an office lease the commission is usually paid by the landlord when the lease is signed. What differs is what the broker negotiates on the way there. How to choose a tenant rep broker explains how the fee is set.

What is the fastest way to tell the two kinds of broker apart?

Hand over a landlord's proposal and ask what it costs across the whole term. A commercial broker converts it to effective rent, with free rent, the allowance and escalations priced in. Someone who reads the asking rent back to you has shown which kind of lease they usually work on.

Talk to a broker

Want this answered for your team?

Tell us three things: team size, timing, budget. A first shortlist can be ready within 24 hours, with the asking rent on every floor that publishes one.

Within the houra broker reaches out during business hours, no automated triage
On your sidewe work for you on your search, and the landlord usually pays our fee
Open pricingasking rent published for 46 of 49 floors, size and address for all
300+ officesdelivered in New York, 2M+ sq ft leased

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