A Commercial Real Estate Broker in New York for a Company Opening Its First Office Here

What reads differently when you are new to New York

• Rent is annual and per rentable square foot. Rentable includes a share of the lobby, corridors and mechanical space, and the usable area inside your walls is 15 to 25 percent smaller. A company used to a monthly figure, or to usable or net internal area, has to convert before it compares.
• Security is usually a letter of credit from your bank, not cash. A young company without profits should expect to post more months of rent, and since that ties up money it belongs in the plan from the start.
• Leases are long. Five to ten years is the conventional direct lease, and anything shorter has to be asked for on purpose: a sublease, a pre-built floor, or a direct deal of one to three years.

The security deposit entry explains how the letter of credit works. Have a New York real estate attorney read the lease, because the form will be unfamiliar to counsel at home.

What a New York broker knows that your broker at home does not

The mechanics of leasing travel. The knowledge that decides a deal stays put: which landlords give ground on free rent, which buildings have the power a team needs, which floors have been sitting and why. It comes from closing deals in these buildings month after month.

Nomad Property Group is a licensed New York real estate broker, and on your search, we work for you. In most transactions the landlord pays the broker fee. Nomad also offers agency leasing and owner representation, so ask us whether a building we show you is one we lease for its owner.

Running the search from headquarters: the brief by video, one trip for tours

• Set the brief on a video call: New York headcount now and in 18 months, the date, a budget band and two neighborhoods.
• Cut the list from your desk. Listings carry sizes and photographs, nearly all show an asking rent, and some can be walked through in 3D.
• Send one person with authority to decide for a two-day visit, and tour the finalists then.
• Do the rest remotely: test fits, proposals, the letter of intent and the lease all move by email and calls. A second trip is needed only to sign off the design of a custom space.

Timing, and why a furnished floor is the quickest landing

Plan about a quarter end to end: roughly three weeks of search, a month or more on the lease, and the remainder on getting the space ready. That last stretch is where the choice of floor matters. A furnished or pre-built floor is usually ready for a team two to four weeks from signing. Building a space to order typically takes 10 to 16.

The block on this page shows the furnished and pre-built floors we list, with the size and asking rent of each. A company arriving from abroad should also set up its US entity and banking before it searches, since the letter of credit depends on them. The playbooks for San Francisco companies and London companies cover each case.

Where arriving companies tend to land

Software and engineering teams usually begin their tours in Flatiron and Union Square, where the technology cluster and the widest subway reach are. Chelsea, next door, is the value option in the same corridor. Consumer and design brands add SoHo for the address. Companies whose executives and clients arrive by commuter rail or from the airport look near Grand Central. Tour two neighborhoods, not five. Choosing an office neighborhood explains how to pick them.