What a Tenant Broker Does, for a Brooklyn Team Weighing a Manhattan Office

The tenant broker's job, and who pays for it

The job runs in a fixed order. The broker writes your requirement down, surveys what is available, sends a shortlist with sizes and asking rents, walks the floors with you, has your team drawn onto the finalists, collects the landlords' proposals, and then negotiates first the letter of intent and after it the lease, with your attorney reading the document.

The commission is paid when the lease is signed. In most transactions the landlord pays the broker fee. What a tenant signs with its broker differs from firm to firm, so ask to see it before the search starts. Nomad Property Group is a licensed New York real estate broker. On your search, we work for you.

Where we list: Manhattan, and not Williamsburg

Every floor we list is in Manhattan. We have no listings in Williamsburg and none anywhere else in Brooklyn, and we would sooner say so here than on a call. If a Manhattan office is not right for your company, we will tell you that too.

What follows is for a team that has decided to look across the river.

The Manhattan address a Brooklyn roster reaches: the L at 14th Street

The L runs under 14th Street and stops at Union Square, where it meets the 4, 5, 6, N, Q, R and W. For a team that rides the L, that makes Union Square the most reachable office address in Manhattan: one train, no change.

The office market around the square is small. Floors are few and tend to go fast, so the block below may be all there is at a given moment, and the Union Square guide explains the neighborhood. When nothing fits, Flatiron begins a few blocks north and shares most of the same lines. How to choose a neighborhood covers the wider comparison.

What a Brooklyn-based team should prepare before the search

• Headcount now, and what you expect in 12 to 18 months.
• The date you need to be working there.
• A monthly budget.
• The home stations of the team, so the commute claim can be tested and not assumed.
• Anything the space must have: light, a number of meeting rooms, a kind of building.

With the first three, a first shortlist can be ready within 24 hours.

After signing in Manhattan: support through the buildout

If the floor needs work, the drawings, the permits and the contractor become the job of Nomad's construction management team. A custom buildout typically runs 10 to 16 weeks. On a furnished or pre-built floor that stage disappears, and the wait between signing and move-in drops to two to four weeks.