In pursuit of an office

Have been looking at offices in London yesterday since early morning in the Mayfair, Marylebone, Soho, Fitzrovia areas. Got to see over 10 buildings. The pedometer in my iPhone showed 21,700 steps walked for the day.

Arriving in London, we had already mentally set ourselves up to take that office in Mayfair near Hydepark, which the quote sent to us was 800k a month. When we looked at it and talked to the agent, it turned out that in the price list there was an asterisk, and 800k is the price with a discount for the first two months and a five-year contract excluding VAT, and in reality it costs 1.5 million rubles a month. And this is for 136 meters without furniture.

We were attracted by a separate three-storey mansion with its own entrance from the street in the Soho district on Carnaby Street. The building is small, 160 meters, each floor is 50 meters and the total price is 700k per month. But it is in the center of a pedestrian street and it takes 3-5 minutes to walk to any road. This is inconvenient for customers, you can't drive a car for the next 200 meters and there is no parking at all.
Yes and was told that Soho is considered more of a club and party neighborhood, not really suitable in status for real estate business.

Have looked at a lot of options on Mayfair. Everything we like is obnoxiously priced, everything that is priced adequately within London is not. There are so many nuances and compromises.

Offices are fundamentally divided into two types: classic in interesting and not-so-interesting historical and sometimes new knowledge and service offices, which have large common areas, reception, meeting rooms and small offices for 4-6-8 desks. There are a lot of service offices on the market and they are all stylish and beautiful. They have much simpler contract terms and do not take such a large deposit as in the classic ones, where with a new company agents asked us to pay for six months in advance. But any less decent spaces cost 1 million+ at once.

To make you understand, in Moscow City on the 50th floor we paid for rent 150 meters with good repair and its own toilet in the office 550k rubles and it was one of the highest rates in the capital, here for 550k we can rent a modest room meters 30-40 in not the best in aesthetics of the building.

Offices for 80k in central London just don't exist. Turns out that's what it costs for a windowless micro space for two people in a service office.

So right now, of all the options, my soul lies most heavily on a third-floor service office with four large windows of about 45 meters in the Chelsea area in a cool new building. Rent there will be 750k a month and it's the best we've found so far. We'll look at a couple more tomorrow, but today has done a great job of shoring up our reality.

Had dinner in the evening with the guys from our London team, and before that still had time to have a meeting in a restaurant with a broker who has been invited to work in our future office. We now have 20-40 applications a day from all over the world for London and there is a lot of work. He took a pause to think. There were similar pauses of doubt in Moscow at the start of the company in 2016. Those who refused then are now regretting, and those who came with us did not lose and are now getting high. We understand him. We'll get through this.

If you have in mind any good brokers in London who want to work in the premium new build market, write.
Attached to the post are pics of some of the offices we visited yesterday.