Finding a price for your space

For most spaces there is no market price to look up. What there is, is a way of approaching a price you can live with and that brings enquiries.

First, so the expectation is right: we will not name you a guide figure. We are not a pricing service, do not know your space, and a number from us would be an assertion we would have to stand behind.

Step one: compare

The directory is open, no account required. Use that: search for your use type in your region and look at what is there.

Comparable does not mean the same size. Comparable means similar use, similar location, similar fittings. A vending spot in an office foyer and one in a station have different prices, though both are two square metres.

Notice how often Price on request appears. If almost everyone in your niche names a price, you stand out without one. If almost nobody does, that is a sign it depends heavily on the individual case there.

Step two: count your own effort

A price has to cover not only the space but what it costs you.

Running costs you carry: electricity, heating, cleaning, lighting. If they are meant to be included, they have to be in there.

Your time. Who unlocks, who is there when deliveries arrive, who is reachable for questions. On a space with permanent access that is nothing; on one you have to drive to each time, it is the real price.

What you give up. A parking space you would have used yourself is more expensive than a corner that stood empty anyway.

Step three: allow for the term

A monthly price means something different over two weeks than over two years.

Short terms may cost proportionally more, because the effort per contract stays the same. Long terms may be cheaper, because they give you certainty and spread the effort. Write in the description how you handle it, and nobody has to guess.

Step four: leave room, but not too much

Almost everything gets negotiated. A price with a little give downwards therefore makes sense.

What does not work is a price far above comparable ones on the assumption that you will settle somewhere. Operators filter by price before they read descriptions. Start too high and you do not negotiate harder, you do not negotiate at all, because nobody gets in touch.

When price on request is right

There are good reasons for it. When the price genuinely depends on the use, when running costs vary a lot, or when an unusual space means you want to know what somebody has in mind first.

The cost is real: your space drops out of any search where somebody sets a price range. If you would rather not commit, a compromise helps: a guide figure in the field and a note in the description about what it depends on.

What belongs in the description

The price field takes a number. Everything explaining that number belongs in the text: whether it is gross or net, which running costs are included and which are not, how you work out shorter or longer terms, and whether you are open to negotiation.

Three sentences cover it, and they save half the exchange of messages. How to build the rest of the listing is in Photos and descriptions. What is settled between you rather than through us is in What the price on a space means.