Should you buy or build?

Build or buy? This was a questions we agonized over for more than a year. Both have their upsides, and both have their drawbacks.

Sarah and I made out a very long pro/con list on our living room picture window with a giant sheet of paper to try and answer that question.

First the pros, if you build a new building, you get exactly what you want. You can design it the way that works best for your company, with your choice of materials, your floorplan, your trim features, building systems, solar panels, you name it.
You can have just about anything you want, if you have the budget…and more importantly if you stick to the budget.

But there are some negatives when it comes to building new.

The land is in addition to the building itself. There will have to be engineering done, surveys, permits and lots and lots of meetings. Design meetings, progress meetings, meetings to select a builder.

With an existing building there honestly aren’t that many meetings. You’ll have meetings with your lender, but that’s about it. You’ll still need to do a lot of legwork to find your building, but everything will pretty much be ready to go at move in, turnkey as they say in most cases, with, and this is important, a history of expenses to track so you know what to expect.

Now there could be some remodeling that will have to be done, and that is on the con list. It will need a good cleaning and you will need to make sure the building is inspected, just like a house and be sure all the systems are working and there’s no existing damage.

But the time involved is much shorter from offer to move in. For a new building to be completed, we were looking more than 8 months to a year depending on who you talked to to get in. Most builders we’re wanting to start in the Spring of 2019 for move in later that year.

So there are a lot of questions to ask yourself when it comes to debating building, versus buying existing.

If you have questions about the building buying process, send us an email and we’ll do our best to help you.

Chris Herzog is the co-owner of STOKES|HERZOG Marketing and Consulting based in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The company handles advertising and Human Resources consulting for large corporations, hospitals, non-profit organizations and municipalities all across the U.S. Log on to stokesherzog.com for more information.

Chris Herzog and his wife Sarah Stokes, are both former WEAU television news anchors, started STOKES|HERZOG, an advertising and public relations agency in 2014. The agency assists both local and global clients with all of their corporate business consulting, advertising, public relations, and marketing needs including video production, website management, graphic design, social media management and overall marketing and advertising strategy.

Stokes Herzog Realty LLC is Eau Claire, Wisconsin’s commercial real estate brokerage firm. Our team of professionals represent tenants, landlords, buyers and sellers in every facet of commercial real estate. Throughout the State of Wisconsin, Stokes Herzog Realty LLC specializes in tenant representation, property acquisition, surplus disposition, leasing services and investment sales. We look forward to working with you!