The Recession and Property Prices

London is one of the busiest cities in the world and a magnet for UK businesses. Commercial property in London is among the most sought-after. Greater London Properties can help with every stage of the process. From helping you find the right property to managing it for you day to day, we make purchasing commercial properties as straightforward as possible.

Here are some of the ways we can help you with your next commercial property purchase in central London.

Table of Contents

Identifying The Right Location

London is a big and diverse city. There are numerous renowned London districts with unique and outstanding characters. For any business that expects to interact with the general public, the business’ location must match its target audience. For example, retail outlets need to be easily accessible and located in high-traffic areas for footfall.

If you are looking for office or industrial space, it is less important to choose a location that matches your workers. However, it still pays to choose a location with good local recruitment prospects and or public transport links. These will ensure that you’re able to attract recruits to your new premises and welcome workers from further afield who commute using public transport.

Businesses looking for new premises because they are expanding their operations should already have a good idea of the kind of location that will benefit their business the most. On the other hand, a startup or small business that is still finding its feet will need to be extra careful. Choosing the wrong location for your company makes recruiting and retaining staff much more difficult. Opening a retail outlet in the wrong part of London will make it harder for you to take advantage of being located in the heart of Europe’s busiest commercial district.

Greater London Properties has more than a decade of experience helping commercial property buyers to find the perfect property in the best location available. There are many potential locations in London, and there is certain to be a district in the city to suit your business. But finding the right one is a challenge, even if you know London reasonably well. We will never rush your search, but we can dramatically speed it up and help you move into your new commercial property as soon as possible.

Choosing The Best Available Property

Once you have identified the right location for a commercial property, you then need to find the property itself. Of course, life isn’t always as straightforward and simple as we would like. If there aren’t any suitable properties in your preferred area, you might have to default to your second choice. Don’t think of this as settling for less than the best. The right property can offset a less-than-ideal location.

Some businesses will be in the enviable position of being able to consider commercial properties anywhere in central London. If you aren’t working with restrictions on your property’s location, our catalogue of properties contains prime commercial real estate from across central London. We also have a team of experienced and knowledgeable staff to help you navigate the available options and settle on the one that works best for your business.

Buying commercial properties through Greater London Properties ensures you avoid the nightmare scenario of purchasing a commercial property, only to discover that it falls afoul of local regulations. This scenario can add significantly to the cost of setting your business up in a new property, as well as increasing the time spent until you are ready to begin operations. Our experienced team has vetted every property on our books to ensure that everything is above board and as it should be. You can purchase a commercial property through us with confidence.

Keep Your Other Operations Flowing

Moving into a new commercial property can cause severe disruption to a business. In some cases, it is necessary to suspend business operations until the new location is up and running. Even if your business continues operating while you get things ready on your new site, a smooth and painless buying process will minimise any disruption that does occur.

For smaller businesses in particular, purchasing a new commercial property can represent a significant investment. Any hiccups along the way can have an impact on your other operations. A property deal that falls through or goes south can severely impact the rest of a business’s finances.

Greater London Properties offers a range of commercial business services that enable us to make your property purchasing experience as smooth as possible.

Property Management Services

GLP provides property management services to commercial customers. Many buyers are purchasing a commercial property intending to rent it out. For these clients, we are willing to go in and take on full responsibility for the management of the premises. This responsibility means that we will find tenants, collect rent, and assume responsibility for general maintenance. Our clients can benefit from these services in several ways.

Setting the right rent: Investing in property in an area that you aren’t familiar with can be tricky. Even if you are familiar with the area itself, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you know what to expect in terms of rental income. Our property managers operate to the same high standards and with the same in-depth knowledge as the rest of our team. They will be able to strike the right balance between maximising profits and maintaining occupancy.

Collecting rent: Letting a commercial property out is pointless if you aren’t able to collect rent from your tenants. For most landlords, collecting rent is a needless administrative burden. Most tenants won’t give you any trouble, but when they do, the resulting furore can take up a significant amount of time. Our property managers will take responsibility for collecting rent from clients and ensuring that it reaches your bank account.
Legal and regulatory experience: England is a country that loves regulations. The tangled web of rules and regulations regarding property usage in London is nigh on impossible for many people to navigate. Thanks to Greater London Properties’ experience working with properties of all types in central London, our commercial property managers are already familiar with the relevant regulations in place throughout the city. We will make sure you stay on the right side of the rules and don’t incur any penalties for breaching them.
Proactive maintenance: Once you have purchased a property, you become responsible for its maintenance and upkeep. This obligation can require a significant investment of both time and money, but it is a core part of being a property owner. When it comes to commercial properties, failing to stay on top of maintenance can have serious repercussions. If lax maintenance leads to safety issues, you could be financially and legally liable for any injuries that occur. It’s also possible that a minor issue left to fester can snowball out of control and turn into something much more severe that forces you to close the property until the problem is fixed.Our property managers will conduct regular inspections, as well as performing routine maintenance. This vigilant approach means that we can identify and fix problems early before they devolve into something that threatens the integrity of your operations.
Time management: Commercial property investors are busy. We understand that what they want is to buy a property and start earning an income; anything else is just added hassle. The administrative burdens of managing a single property can be considerable; few people have time to stay on top of managing multiple properties on their own. With our property management services, clients are left free to focus on developing the rest of their portfolio.

Local Knowledge And Experience

It is difficult to overstate the value of property agents who have local knowledge and experience. We have touched on some of the advantages already. Local experience means we know how to match businesses with the right locations and guide clients towards the properties best-suited to their needs. Our experience working with property in central London also means that we are already familiar with rent rates and local regulations.

But there are numerous other benefits to working with an experienced property business like ours. Greater London Properties enjoys a plethora of connections to other companies and people across the capital that enable us to offer a level of service that our competitors can’t. We have worked with some of the biggest and most influential property owners in the West End over the years. We also have multiple shop fronts, in both Soho and Bloomsbury. These shop fronts provide us with coverage of some of London’s most sought-after areas for property buyers.

Anyone looking to purchase commercial property in central London should work with a reputable estate agent like Greater London Properties to ensure that you get the best deal on the best available property. Once we have helped you find the ideal property, we can then take charge of its day to day management, leaving you free to sit back and let the rent roll in.