Brief checklists for landlords renting out studio spaces
1. Outline your target tenant audience. If you’re planning to work with wellness, performance, and sports practitioners, studio spaces will be sought after by dance, yoga, and pilates trainers, as well as, possibly, martial arts or self-defense trainers, and so on. Pick the practices you would like to work with: this will be important for advertising your rental.
2.Check if the equipment is right for your future tenants. Some sports, performance, and wellness practices are quite similar, but some have crucial requirements. For instance, you can’t rent a studio for pole dance classes if it doesn’t have the poles installed. A ballet studio must have barres, an aerial yoga studio — trapeze ceiling hooks, etc.
3.Inspect the general requirements. Regardless of who your studio tenants will be, a studio must have:
- Firm, slip-resistant flooring;
- Large, clear, shatter-proof wall mirrors;
- Air conditioning;
- Perfect noise insulation;
- Quality stereo system;
- Bright lightning;
- Changing room;
- Storage space;
- Numerous electric outlets;
- Benches.
4.Examine everything about the building. If you own just a space, and not the entire building, the very first thing you need to do is to contact the owners and make sure you can turn your rental into a dance studio. (Obviously, if it was a dance class space from the start, you don’t have to do that).
Proceed with inspecting the safety measures. This includes the condition of the building’s general infrastructure (from walls to roof), hot water systems, communal spaces, electricity, plumbing, ventilation, etc. There should be no hazards, and functional smoke alarms and security systems are a must. If you can invest in additional safety and comfort measures, do so.
5.Find a stellar maintenance team. Perhaps, your commercial building already has hired workers that manage cleaning and repairs. But if you aren’t quite satisfied with how fast and thorough they are (they have dozens of other spaces to manage in here, after all), just hire on-demand services.
6.Choose between a long-term and a short-term rental model. Both have their pros and cons, and we will cover some of them later in the article.
7.Get legal. While every state and country is different, all of them will have laws and rules for landlords. Make sure you have all the necessary papers and permits for renting out studio space, getting income, paying taxes, etc. Consulting with a professional before entering the real estate market is always a good idea.
Different ways to rent out a dance studio space and find tenants: pros and cons
So, now that you’re down with all the preliminary work on your dance studio rental, time to find those interested in booking it. There are at least three most popular options:
Hiring a real estate broker. A solid approach, but also a pricey one. Real estate brokers take significant commissions and fees, charging around 10% of a year’s rent price. If you’re planning to lease your studio long-term, then it might be adequate for your budget. For more flexible rental models there are other methods not involving expensive brokerage.
A good old “For Rent“ sign outside the studio. It has been working long before the Internet, catching passerbys’ attention, so why not? But here’s a catch: you need to go big or go home here; the sign should be very large and very readable 24/7, which comes with additional expenses. Plus, you need to get acquainted with local laws on real estate advertising, and probably a bunch of other rules.
Internet listings. The power of the Web will find your potential tenants on every device, so listing your rental here is a must. Here you can use paid and free approaches. The first one is investing in adverts or target ads on social media, etc. Nice, but expensive. The second one is listing your dance studio rental on free real estate websites where your ad won’t get buried under the pile of paid ones. Sites like that don’t charge users for posting or accessing the listings, they make money from the bookings made on their platforms. A win-win for all.
So, which is the best way to rent out a dance studio?
As we mentioned, you can choose the long-term, 12+ rental model. The main risk here is to lease your dance studio to someone who can be constantly late with payments, goes out of business abruptly, etc.
Short-term rentals attract practitioners with an established client base, so they pay upfront starting from $25 per hour, Wellerz works as a secure booking platform for tenants like these.
On Wellerz you will be able to rent out your studio on your terms by pre-approving bookings and setting up minimum requirements for your tenants. The rate is also yours to choose from, starting from the hourly fee. We bring you tenants, but it’s your call — so join us today!
