Here’s how much your company pays to rent office space

When it comes to real estate, it’s always location, location, location and price, price, price.

Start a company in Chicago, and you’ll pay half as much to rent commercial office space as in New York. And it’s even cheaper in other major cities.

The average monthly rent for a square foot of office space is $1.74 in Atlanta and $1.92 in Dallas, according to data from TheSquareFoot.

But in San Francisco, the price jumps to $5.43. It’s even pricier in New York City at an average of $6.16 — and that’s across all five boroughs.

Here’s how much the average office space costs per employee in your city, based on allocating 200 square feet per employee:

City Average yearly cost to rent office space, per employee
New York $14,800
San Francisco $13,032
Washington, D.C. $10,522
Chicago $7,000
Los Angeles $6,702
Miami $6,630
Seattle $6,420
Boston $6,080
Houston $5,668
Dallas $4,618
Atlanta $4,194
Source: The Square Foot

Of course, opening an office in New York or San Francisco is going to cost a lot more per employee than just the figure listed above. There’s still those salaries to pay. San Francisco’s median income in 2013 was $75,604, and the average annual wage for tech workers was $156,518.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the city also has the nation’s highest cost of living — 48.8% above the national average.

The office rent prices are mostly in line with residential real-estate prices in the area.

A cool $1 million in San Francisco will get an 837-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo (with a parking spot!). That same $1 million in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., buys a five-bedroom custom home with a wine cellar, bar and spa.

 

 

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