BusinessWeek just did a feature on a burgeoning trend in the SMB space: buying an office condo. The trend here in the Big Apple area is similar, but, affected by high urban pricing, has evolved into larger companies creating more joint office campuses to ease expansion needs. Prices are good and the ability to cash in on an office sale allows you to view the office as an investment rather than simply another li But office park condos aren’t the only ways you might cash in like this. Small businesses and new businesses, especially, can look at other options, including residential condos and houses. The upsides are similar to those in an office park or building scenario, though there are a few additional gotchas you need to consider:1. Check the real estate forecasts for your potential buying area. Make sure you’re not looking at a possible loss. The nice thing about this approach is that you can resell the property to either another business or a residential consumer. 2. Make sure the property is in a live/work zone. This becomes especially important if you wind up needing any remodeling that requires subsequent inspections — electrical, plumbing, etc. 3. Business-class broadband services. Important if you’re hosting a few servers yourself. Not so important for folks who aren’t hosting machines, especially if a large chunk of your employees are virtual. In my experience, however, you’re going to bump your head on residential bandwidth limits with more than 5 users. Best to make sure you can upgrade to higher-end business DSL or T-1 services, just in case.Frankly, I really like the idea–as long as you’ve got the disposable income at present. If I had a limited budget, I’d definitely opt for cheaper rent or virtual environments and spend my money on more critical areas of the business. But if you’ve got the spare dollars, then real estate is a solid investment.The BusinessWeek article points out that should your company fall on hard times, the property might become a burden; and, similarly, if you suddenly hit a windfall and require a quick bump in available space, a real estate purchase might be unduly constraining. Frankly, I don’t agree with either of those. My company is in tight-budget mode right now, and if we had an internal real estate investment to draw upon I can’t think it would be anything other than positive. You can borrow against it or move out, go fully virtual, and rent the space to someone else, creating an additional revenue stream. And if you’re suddenly successful and need more space, I still don’t see the advantage of this over renting an office.In the renting scenario, I suppose you could talk your landlord into exchanging your lease for something larger in the same complex or simply adding the next condo over onto yours. That’s still available to you in the purchase scenario–just a different way of planning. And if direct expansion isn’t feasible, there are so many technologies designed to tie two office sites together virtually, I can’t imagine a business that couldn’t be divided that way with a little planning. Technology Industry