Startup Office Leasing Checklist for NYC Founders, Stage by Stage

A startup office space leasing checklist works best in the order the lease happens. Before the search, fix headcount, the date, the budget and the neighborhoods, and choose a broker. At tours, walk three to five floors in one afternoon with the same list in hand. At the letter of intent, settle rent, term, free rent, the allowance and the security. At the lease, bring in an attorney and read the guarantee and the sublet clause. Before move-in, order furniture, cabling, internet and insurance. Each stage below lists what should be finished before the next one starts.

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Updated 2026-10-03 · Nomad Group

Before the search: five items to have in writing

Headcount now, and where the hiring plan puts it in 12 to 18 months.
The date the team needs to be working from the new office.
A monthly budget that includes electricity and the other costs beyond rent.
Two or three neighborhoods, picked by where the team lives.
A broker chosen. Meet the person who will run the search, and ask how they are paid. How to choose a tenant rep broker has the tests.

At tours: three to five floors, one afternoon, one list

Bring whoever will sign, whoever will run the office, and one skeptic.
Carry one sheet per floor: square feet, asking rent, the monthly cost it implies and the earliest move-in date.
Check what photos hide: daylight at your working hours, noise with the door shut, elevator waits, air-conditioning hours and which internet providers serve the building.
Rank the floors that evening and write down why the others were dropped.

The office tour checklist is the full version of this stage.

At the letter of intent: five terms to settle before the lawyers start

Rent, and how it rises each year.
Term, and the date rent begins.
Free rent: how many months, and when they fall.
The improvement allowance, or whatever work the landlord takes on itself.
The security: the deposit or letter of credit, and any personal guarantee.

A number is cheap to change at this stage and slow to change once the lease is being drafted. What a letter of intent covers explains the document.

At the lease: what the attorney reads and what the founder reads

Hire a real estate attorney to review the landlord's draft. Your broker checks it against the letter of intent.
Read the good guy guarantee yourself: the notice you must give and the conditions for release.
Confirm the sublease and assignment rights, including what happens if the company is sold.
Confirm what you must remove or restore at the end of the term.

Guarantee and assignment language differs from lease to lease, so treat your attorney's reading as final.

Before move-in: the orders that take longest

Internet: order the circuit when the lease is signed. Installation can take several weeks.
Furniture and cabling, unless the floor comes furnished.
Insurance: the certificates the building requires from you and from every vendor.
Access cards, and a freight elevator booking for move day.

On a furnished or pre-built floor most of this is already in place, with the keys usually two to four weeks behind the signature. The block below holds floors that fit about 20 people.

Floors that fit a team of 20

Live from our listings · 6 of the 20, smallest first

A team of 20 plans on about 3,500 square feet at 175 a person. 20 floors on our book sit in the range that fits, 3,500 to 6,300 square feet, asking $50 to $135 per square foot per year.

Floors: 20
Sizes: 3,500-6,100 sq ft
Asking rent: $50-$135 / sq ft

Every available floor, filterable by size →

The full guide

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

Where on the checklist does choosing the broker belong?

First, before any tour. The brief is the broker's instruction, and a broker who joins after you have toured with a landlord's agent has less room to work. In most transactions the landlord pays the broker fee, so choosing early usually costs nothing extra. Give two or three firms an identical one-page brief and pick within about two weeks.

Which checklist item is easiest for a first-time founder to miss?

Pricing the buildout before signing. If the floor needs work, get a contractor's estimate on a test fit of your actual layout while the lease is still being negotiated. That estimate is the only way to know whether the landlord's allowance is large enough. How to negotiate an office lease shows where it fits.

How long does a founder spend on each stage?

With a clear brief, the search and tours take two to four weeks, the letter of intent one to two, and the lease three to six. On a furnished floor, move-in comes two to four weeks later; a custom buildout typically adds 10 to 16 weeks instead. Stages can overlap, which is how a quick team is working from the new floor six to eight weeks after it first toured.

Is the checklist shorter for a furnished floor?

Yes. There is no buildout to price, the allowance matters less at the letter of intent, and the move-in stage shrinks to internet, insurance and access. The lease stage does not shrink: the guarantee, the sublet clause and the restoration language need the same reading on a one-year lease as on a five-year one.

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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.

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