FAQs for Owner-Occupied Property in Greater Philadelphia Region
How to make your owner-occupied property a smart investment instead of a big expense.
What Is an Owner-Occupied Property?
What does owner-occupied mean? In commercial real estate, a property falls under the owner-occupied category when the building is owned (as compared to rented or leased) and occupied by the same person or company. Owner-occupiers have a different stake in the property when compared to renters or lessees. When owner-occupiers make changes, they not only improve the overall appearance of the space, but also their value and sale price.
Benefits of Owner-Occupied Real Estate
There are many benefits of owning and occupying your property according to real estate firms.
For example:
- The value of commercial property tends to appreciate over time.
- When you’re ready to sell your property, making a profit is a possibility.
- There’s an opportunity to create an income stream by leasing out your property.
- You can be eligible for tax breaks.
- Investing time and money into something you own can be rewarding.
Investing in Your Owner-Occupied Real Estate
In order to reap the benefits above, like value appreciation and making a profit, you’ll need to maintain your office. If you have a dated commercial office, it’s probably time for a renovation or redesign. The good news is that the time and money you put goes directly into your investment. It doesn’t go into your landlord’s pocket.
Another benefit of owner-occupied property is you don’t have to negotiate with your landlord or worry about Tenant Improvement Allowance (TIA) when renovating your commercial office.
There are a few differences between making design changes as a renter and as an owner. First, design concepts for owner-occupiers aim to attract and retain talent without being over-designed. This means that owner-occupiers tend to stay away from overly trendy design features and incorporate more timeless features that put function over form.
Something else that’s important to owner-occupiers as they make design changes is avoiding disruptions to their business. Where renters can rent short-term space during lengthy renovations, owners usually don’t have that opportunity.
When it’s time to renovate or redesign your office, finding the right design, architecture, and construction partner is crucial. You have to find a firm that can see eye-to-eye on your vision and can provide ideas, designs, budget, timeline, etc. that avoid major setbacks.
That’s where a design-build partner like Formcraft comes into play.
What Is a Design-Build Partner?
Formcraft is a design-build partner. We consolidate design and construction expertise under one roof. So, instead of hiring multiple firms for one project, you can hire one full-service firm. First, finding a design-build partner saves you time when hiring because you only have to find one firm. Second, hiring a design-build partner makes communication with design and construction teams easier since it’s centralized. Finally, using a design-build partner mitigates risk of project delay in between documentation and construction.
As a design-build company, we are process-driven. Our management, design, architecture, and construction teams overlap and intertwine from discovery to design to delivery. To provide the most value to our customers, every project starts at the design process, and we strive to make seamless transitions as we navigate through each stage.
That’s why we deliver projects up to 25% faster and more efficiently.
Why partner with Formcraft for your owner-occupied property? Because we do things differently. Project delivery at Formcraft is rooted in three promises: Schedule Certainty, Quality Certainty, and Cost Certainty. We’re able to make and keep these promises because we’re a transparent, design-build partner. Every step of the way—from discovery, to concept design, to design development, documentation and construction—our team communicates with each other and the client to make sure we stay on schedule and within budget.
Formcraft has years of experience working with owner-occupiers. Our team always communicates that owners can be involved as much as they want or are willing to. Take a look at one of our owner-occupier clients, who recently sold their building to relocate.
Case Study: Owner-Occupier Client in Greater Philadelphia
Formcraft’s relationship with Pilot Freight Services, a transportation and logistics company in the greater Philly area, started out small. The original founders of Pilot were owner-occupiers and reached out to the Formcraft team to make some minor upgrades to their very dated corporate offices. When the relationship started, Formcraft had no idea that there would be more projects, but being a dated facility, they knew there was the potential.
When working with an owner-occupier like Pilot, Formcraft maintained their long-term relationship by bringing value to their property. According to Wayne Druckenmiller, there were a few key pieces that enabled a successful long-term relationship.
“I would say the key pieces were attention to detail and giving them a very high level of service. Whenever they had something they needed addressed, we responded with a high level of interest, no matter how simple the project or requirement was. They didn’t have a full scale facilities department, so we essentially became an extension of their facilities team,” says Wayne.
Formcraft’s improvements elevated the value of the owned property, so when it came time to sell, the prior owners benefited from Formcraft’s hard work and design expertise.
Additionally, because Formcraft built a strong relationship with Pilot, they were the top candidates for their next design project—consolidating multiple existing locations to a single HQ.