Wirt Atmar writes:

>Kidding aside, AICS Research has always worked out of houses (but doing
>that's been more or less traditional for small research & development
>firms.
>IBM worked out of rented houses in San Jose in the early 1960s; indeed,
>that's where they invented the moving head disc).
>
>A house is intrinsically more comfortable than an office building. If you
>have no walk-in customers and have no need of putting up a store-front
>facade, buying a house on a 10-year mortgage is not only a far better
>investment than paying office rent, it's much quieter, more pleasant to
>work
>in, and allows people to work longer hours, at their leisure. We currently
>work out of two adjacent 70-year-old houses in the Alameda Historical
>District in Las Cruces, NM (and we are preparing to move into a third, and
>possibly a fourth adjacent house this summer).

This is a fascinating idea, and I wondered "why didn't we do that?" I
then remembered:

1. Houses are hard to find in non-residential areas, and most
municipalities won't let you run a business with non-family employees (or
with more than one or two non-family employees) in residential areas. In
fact, we considered building a 600-700 square-foot guest house on our
existing property for an office, but ran into the business restrictions.
We also considered buying one vacant lot in our neighborhood and building
a house to use as an office, but were stymied by the regulations -- even
though the lot had a major thoroughfare on one side and a shopping center
in back.

What is the situation in Las Cruces? Do you have a way of getting these
restrictions lifted/waived in certain situations? If you're in a
residential area, do you ever get complaints from the neighbors?

Phoenix has some houses in non-residential areas, but they're mostly
downtown, a 15-mile commute. (I hear snickers from the readers in the SF
Bay area :-).) They're also very expensive, having been "gentrified" and
bought as investment property. When we were in business in California, we
found the perfect house for a business. But it was $350,000 so we'd have
had to lease out part of it, and I didn't fancy being a landlord while
trying to start a software business :-).

2. Sometimes a storefront is needed "just because." When we looked into
taking credit cards while we worked out of a home, we were told that a
storefront was a requirement. It was also a requirement for some HP
program or other that we wanted to get into, but I don't recall the
details. Have you encountered this? If so, how did you deal with it?

3. Do you have any concerns about weekend security?

I love the idea. There are environmental advantages as well, since small
offices in residential areas can reduce or eliminate automobile
commuting. I'd like to find a way to make it work, especially since our
lease is almost up for renewal. Can you provide further details?

-- Bruce



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Bruce Toback    Tel: (602) 996-8601| My candle burns at both ends;
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