Albeit, experiencing some hiccups in recent times, the city’s economic fundamentals have so far remained resilient, with property prices maintaining at a high level, from residential to commercial to offices. This red-hot real estate market not only imposes more financial burdens upon ordinary households, but also translates to more hurdles for entrepreneurs.
In the face of soaring property prices, co-working space — in which numerous freelancers, startups and companies share the same office space, hardware and ancillary services, with a particular focus on community spirit — has been on the rise across the globe in the past few years, given its lower cost compared to traditional office space. And this trend has come to the city lately. This issue of Macau Business takes a look at two of the co-working spaces here, dissecting their pros and cons.
MSPACE
While most co-working spaces mainly provide hot desks, MSPACE, a 15,000-square-foot co-working venue located in Ocean Plaza in Taipa, is somewhat different, as it mainly caters standalone office rooms.
“My bosses and I have done a lot of market researches about co-working spaces and looked into the examples in Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States and many other places,” said Adelyn Wu, business development manager of MSPACE. “We did not simply introduce the overseas operational model here, but we have added our own twist.”
“We know Macau people prefer to have standalone office rooms, which is a predominant feature here,” she added in an early December interview. “Our space has been widely accepted by the market so far.”
MSPACE, becoming operational in October, with an investment of about MOP10 million, now caters two- to four-person office rooms, fetching a monthly rent between HK$6,600 and HK$9,800. In addition to the office rooms, the space also provides hot desks for individuals — a random seat in the common office area — at a monthly rent of HK$3,600, and a reserved desk — a fixed seat in an office room — at HK$4,000.
While tenants can enjoy basic facilities — including a meeting room for as many as 40 persons, a shared common area, IP phones, free coffees and snacks — they are also entitled to personalised secretary service, free cleaning service, printing and scanning service, company setup service and others.
Out of 60 office rooms in MSPACE, 26 have been successfully rented out in less than three months, according to Ms. Wu. Among the tenants, half are locals and half come from other places. “While some of our tenants are startups, some are also matured and developed companies in areas of logistics, legal affairs, design and airlines,” Ms. Wu revealed. “Some of them choose us because they require temporary office space in a transitional period of their operation.”
It’s nice for MSPACE to have a mix of startups and well-developed companies as its tenants, she pointed out. “As we all know, many startups may not last longer than the first three years [of operation]; if we had only relied on startups, there would have been a lot of ups and downs in our operation,” she reasoned.
Talking about the advantages of co-working spaces over traditional office spaces, she highlighted: “It takes a lot of money for companies to set up an office in a professional standard like us, not to mention the rentals and property management fees.”
“Some companies might think it makes more sense to rent a shop at street level for a monthly rent of about $7,000-8,000 in the area of Border Gate,” she continued. “It really depends on the needs of the companies, but we could provide a professional image for your business.”
Besides hardware and software, MSPACE also regularly organises events for its tenants to create the community vibe. The operator is also in talks with a gym located in the same commercial centre to provide discounts for its members to access the gym facilities.
Concerning setting up the co-working space in Taipa, Ms. Wu remarked, “There is a lack of office spaces in Taipa, but this doesn’t mean there is a lack of demand here.”
The overall operation of MSPACE has so far exceeded their expectations. “We expect there will be more new tenants after Chinese New Year because companies will review their financial results by year-end, some of which might cut costs and choose us,” she underscored.
“In the beginning, I had doubts [whether a co-working space would work here], as the Macau market is so small,” she noted. “But it turns out there is really a demand, given the soaring property rents.”
With the locals growing used to this new type of office space, the business development manager does not rule out the possibility of more competition this year, with more new co-working spaces in the city. “But we’re not worried about the competition — we will be fine as long as we could provide personalised and unique services,” she added.