How to Lease a Storage Building
- 1). Choose a term length for your lease. This is very important, because it is difficult to get out of a lease before its term is up. For example, if you lease a storage building for 36 months but have a sudden depletion in stock after 18 months that renders the storage building irrelevant, you are going to have to pay for the remainder of the lease term anyway.
- 2). Choose a net lease if you want to save immediate costs. This is cheaper than a full-service lease, as repairs, taxes and insurance are not included; but you may end up spending as much or more, once you factor in these things.
- 3). Choose a full-service lease if you want to fix your costs. This means the landlord covers some or all of the costs associated with the storage unit. Which ones he or she covers will be stated in the contract.
- 4). Choose a lease with a purchase option if you want to own the storage building eventually but do not have the credit or capital available at the moment. Only choose this option if you are serious about buying. Monthly rental costs are substantially higher with such agreements, so if you choose this option and end up not buying, you will have wasted the extra money you will spend over the lease term.
- 5). Negotiate the contract. Commercial lease contracts have a lot more room to negotiate than residential leases have, as they are more expensive and the market is smaller.
- 6). Make sure the contract works. If it is a full-service lease, make sure every service is covered. If it is a lease with a purchase option, make sure the selling price is agreed upon. Otherwise, the landlord can increase the price at the end of the lease if it becomes more financially advantageous for him to lease to someone else. Then all the extra money you spent is wasted.