This post will be my rambling point as I figure out the different aspects. To start with some of the biggest unknowns are:
- How much does a it cost?
- Are there areas that are better than others?
- Do offices come furnished?
- How does parking work?
- Is security necessary?
- Is internet and power more reliable in some areas that others?
To start with, I will defined the requirements I think I would have if I can take for granted the availability of utilities, parking and security.
- 800 to 1200 sq ft minimum
- One or two private offices
- A storage room / network / server / utility
- Wired for ethernet preferred
- Drop Ceilings Preferred for video camera install
A couple of quick notes about how things are different:
- We need 75 to 125 sqm (square meters of space), realistically we could even go smaller if we are only going to have 4 or five people, but I want to be able to expand possibly fairly soon without moving offices, 10 sq meters is enough for someone to operate, but we need room for other stuff, utility room (break? bathroom if not provided by building)
- traffic is crazy, I can't say whether a location father from the center of downtown is better
- Would I get more job hopping employees if I locate in a Tech Center, close to all of the other companies that compete for employees?
The hub of downtown Hanoi appears (to me) to be in Hoan Kiem about 45 minutes from the naboi airport.
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| Hoan Kiem district in relation to the airport It turns out our hotel for the EMBA program |
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| EMBA Residency - Hilton Garden Inn: 20 Phan Chu Trinh, Phan Chu Trinh, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam |
When I look at other areas whch are IT industrial parks, (such as Thang Long)
I feel like I am getting too 'corporate', Even though this is clloser to the airport (for my future travels) and people will likely have a better parking experience. It seems that there are simply more people downtown, with a much wider set of options for employees traveling to work.
Also, it seems that the 'culture' that we live in here in Boise, is an older, historic building with an awesome view, and smack dab in the middle of town, with food, bars and people all around.
I like the idea that I might be able to find this something similar in Hanoi (perhaps just because it helps me to filter out the huge array of choices)
So I will start my search in Hoàn Kiếm.
The first thing I find is that when searching from google, I get LOTS of places like 'regus' that will charge you WAY more than than they should for an executive office anywhere in the world. Lots of Executive suites, but what I need is a full office for multiple people. So I keep digging one great option appears to be: Savills they appear to be a realestate commercial leasing out fit. They deal primarily in recent construction high rises, but they have some other options as well.
Here i find 5 buildings in Hoam Kiem.
I have found this site in the past when I was not as serious about needing to find real estate options, and I emailed them from their site. They replied back almost immediately with several questions to which I replied. I never heard back from that reply, I dont know if that is because they decided that I was not a good fit, or if they are just not reliable, but it seems like they would have to be a pretty large company in order to represent the caliber of buildings they have.
I reached back out to them (7/30/2015) after more than a month to see if they would reply.
One thing that is not represented on their website is the price, and that is one thing that really helps me to decide quickly on whether a space is a good fit.
While I do want to have a decently nice space (I say that 'lower Class A' and 'upper Class B' fits us.) I will pursue this with them, however I think I need to also so a little bit of classifieds searching in order to find the smaller, individual building owners like the ones I have rented from most of the time in Boise (the larger building owners seem to be able to hold out for longer lease times and higher rents, and I want neither of those in Hanoi)
I looked back at some old research (before blogging my findings) and I pulled up this officesinvietnam site. I t seems that they have a 'listing service' that has offices and the search seems to help me zerro in on stuff. They also list prices on some of them. I found that the ones that listed the prices had numbers like 37 and 50 USD per sqm / month. This equates to about 4 or 5$ per month per sq foot, or 50 to $60 per square foot per year, compared to Boise prices, rent for the newest high rise can be 20 to 35$ per year, and the class of office that I have been happy with is more like 10 to 16$ / year.
I have not found yet whether that means the entire market is that expensive or that I have just happened upon some very expensive areas, also I do not yet know if there are other services (power, security , parking internet, furnished) included in those. On this site though, it appears that all of the building listing dates are old, and when clicking on the contact now phone number, it takes to a blank page, (not a lot of trust here) however they have now helped me to understand some level of pricing
One (very interesting option) was a Grade B office space with a generator (for reliable power, it IS an issue!) and security. Also the Lift is "good".
While I seriously doubt this place is available, it also helps me to see what options are out there and possibly questions I should be asking when looking at some of these locations
WHen I searched Craigslist, there were lots of Ho Chi Minh office spaces but not a single one in Hanoi, (all though there were lots of houses and apartments in Hanoi)
A google for 'hanoi office rentals' turned up some small cheesy sites that may have had somethign buried inthem, but they didn't seem worthy of searching when several of them only had a single office. building for rent. However one of them appears to have a price that was interesting and it will help me to know what questions I need to ask about at other offices. The space was in an area I didn't want but had this price listed "Price: $ 10 (including management fees). " This helps me to know that it is possible depending on availability that some buildings are SIGNIFICANTLy less than others. But additionally it helpped me see that some places charge a 'Management Fee' so I need to be aware of that , and ask about it for when I am doing my pricing.
One site that I found (and have seen during other searches) is a local classified site, which seems to be pretty busy for vietnam. Although, any more it is hard to know whether the sites are just scraping eachother for content. ANyway, this site is called TNH Hanoi and it looks like they have other localized version "http://tnhvietnam.xemzi.com/". I didn't see any offices, but I wanted to document a possible local classifieds site while I could.
I finally happened upon a real estate agent's website, and it had many menus that reminded me of
somehwere else I had been, so it made me think that perhaps the site is just like a USA style MLS site that agents just pay to have their name on. Anyway, it seemed like a valuable resource so I dug around in it.
http://bdstanlong.com/office-buildings-in-hoan-kiem.html
One nice thing it does is list all of the commericial building in the Hoan Kiem area.
I decided to contact this agent to see if he was willing to do any research for me on this commerical property so I filled out his contct us form.
Here is my nod to Tan Long for allowing me to find him in my searches
I hope to hear back from him in the future.
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Update 8/3/2015
When I hear back from savills, it turns out that their reason for not getting back to me previously was that the email was possibly too large and may have bounced, which Is probably true. Their email was VERY informative and described the overall market and where the different office options were. They also described that much office space is negotiable in price and gave me a concept of the cost of being located close to downtown
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Also, it seems that the 'culture' that we live in here in Boise, is an older, historic building with an awesome view, and smack dab in the middle of town, with food, bars and people all around.
I like the idea that I might be able to find this something similar in Hanoi (perhaps just because it helps me to filter out the huge array of choices)
So I will start my search in Hoàn Kiếm.
The first thing I find is that when searching from google, I get LOTS of places like 'regus' that will charge you WAY more than than they should for an executive office anywhere in the world. Lots of Executive suites, but what I need is a full office for multiple people. So I keep digging one great option appears to be: Savills they appear to be a realestate commercial leasing out fit. They deal primarily in recent construction high rises, but they have some other options as well.
Here i find 5 buildings in Hoam Kiem.
I reached back out to them (7/30/2015) after more than a month to see if they would reply.
One thing that is not represented on their website is the price, and that is one thing that really helps me to decide quickly on whether a space is a good fit.
While I do want to have a decently nice space (I say that 'lower Class A' and 'upper Class B' fits us.) I will pursue this with them, however I think I need to also so a little bit of classifieds searching in order to find the smaller, individual building owners like the ones I have rented from most of the time in Boise (the larger building owners seem to be able to hold out for longer lease times and higher rents, and I want neither of those in Hanoi)
I looked back at some old research (before blogging my findings) and I pulled up this officesinvietnam site. I t seems that they have a 'listing service' that has offices and the search seems to help me zerro in on stuff. They also list prices on some of them. I found that the ones that listed the prices had numbers like 37 and 50 USD per sqm / month. This equates to about 4 or 5$ per month per sq foot, or 50 to $60 per square foot per year, compared to Boise prices, rent for the newest high rise can be 20 to 35$ per year, and the class of office that I have been happy with is more like 10 to 16$ / year. I have not found yet whether that means the entire market is that expensive or that I have just happened upon some very expensive areas, also I do not yet know if there are other services (power, security , parking internet, furnished) included in those. On this site though, it appears that all of the building listing dates are old, and when clicking on the contact now phone number, it takes to a blank page, (not a lot of trust here) however they have now helped me to understand some level of pricing
One (very interesting option) was a Grade B office space with a generator (for reliable power, it IS an issue!) and security. Also the Lift is "good".
While I seriously doubt this place is available, it also helps me to see what options are out there and possibly questions I should be asking when looking at some of these locations- power backup
- elevator
- security
- car park
WHen I searched Craigslist, there were lots of Ho Chi Minh office spaces but not a single one in Hanoi, (all though there were lots of houses and apartments in Hanoi)
A google for 'hanoi office rentals' turned up some small cheesy sites that may have had somethign buried inthem, but they didn't seem worthy of searching when several of them only had a single office. building for rent. However one of them appears to have a price that was interesting and it will help me to know what questions I need to ask about at other offices. The space was in an area I didn't want but had this price listed "Price: $ 10 (including management fees). " This helps me to know that it is possible depending on availability that some buildings are SIGNIFICANTLy less than others. But additionally it helpped me see that some places charge a 'Management Fee' so I need to be aware of that , and ask about it for when I am doing my pricing.
One site that I found (and have seen during other searches) is a local classified site, which seems to be pretty busy for vietnam. Although, any more it is hard to know whether the sites are just scraping eachother for content. ANyway, this site is called TNH Hanoi and it looks like they have other localized version "http://tnhvietnam.xemzi.com/". I didn't see any offices, but I wanted to document a possible local classifieds site while I could.
I finally happened upon a real estate agent's website, and it had many menus that reminded me of
 |
| bdstanlonc.com |
somehwere else I had been, so it made me think that perhaps the site is just like a USA style MLS site that agents just pay to have their name on. Anyway, it seemed like a valuable resource so I dug around in it.
http://bdstanlong.com/office-buildings-in-hoan-kiem.html
One nice thing it does is list all of the commericial building in the Hoan Kiem area.
 |
| bdstanlong.com - 2 |
Here is my nod to Tan Long for allowing me to find him in my searches
- Head office: 39A Xuan Dieu Str., Tay Ho Distr., HanoiTel: (84-4) 3719 9864 - Fax: (84-4) 3719 4124 - Website: www.bdstanlong.com
I hope to hear back from him in the future.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 8/3/2015
When I hear back from savills, it turns out that their reason for not getting back to me previously was that the email was possibly too large and may have bounced, which Is probably true. Their email was VERY informative and described the overall market and where the different office options were. They also described that much office space is negotiable in price and gave me a concept of the cost of being located close to downtown
 |
| map of office buildings with time distance |
- Per Square meter
- if they price does not say 'All - In' then there is a 10% service fee on top of it
- There is a 'Serviced Office' option which is more expensive, but comes furnished and may work better for me as I will start small and
- They created a map with an overview of the office locations and distance from CBD (downtown)
- THey describe how far it is from downtown to the outer locations.
Their email also gave me a concept of the cost of "Serviced" offices. Some offices can run as much as $65sqm, but I do not yet know whether that cost includes electric, internet (fast, like I need it) and desks, chairs, conference, break, etc. I would consider this, as it could cust down on my need to source all of my utilities and desk, etc, , but It will likely require a spreadsheet comparison.
Links to the attached documents for all of the space are here for my reference
Realistically though, this proposal helps me to see that ffice spaces in CBD run from 30 - 45 sqm and in west hanoi it runs about half. But as far as the buildings that have current availability, with office layouts, the proposal only seems to have what floor is available, it does not allow me to really look to closely at each of them.
For now, I will send one more email to them to ask a few questions about the size and availability of the space currently. In particular I would probably like to reduce the time commitment that we have in the space, but maximize the level of move in ready and growing ability. In September, I imagine I will need to dig in and start whittling down the list and start asking for details.
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Update 8/4/2015
I requested that they filter down theeir list to offices which are 'move in ready' and by this I mean that the office does not require an build out. However Anh (the person that responds) understands this to mean that the office already has furniture in it. So I send a clarifying email in which I explain my self a bit more. I am looking for an office that has already had a tenant in it before and does not require any construction, I am looking for an office that when I sign the lease I will be able to pay and start moving furniture in immediately. With this clarification I am hoping to receive additional data back with exact office spaces, with a certain size, floorplan cost and possibly images.Update 8/4/2015
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