6 Office Selection Rules That Save Time, Money, and Sanity in the CBD
Everyone focuses on headline rent per square foot. Why do we do that? What happens when the cheap place has a flaky broadband line and no sheltered MRT access during monsoon season? You end up paying in lost hours, missed video calls, angry clients, and staff attrition. This list gives six practical rules that cut through marketing and help you choose an office that supports day-to-day operations - not just the budget sheet. Want numbers you can use in a negotiation? Want a quick field checklist to test an office in 20 minutes? Want to compare long-term costs rather than short-term rent savings? Keep reading. Each rule includes real examples, tests you can run on-site, and negotiation points to bring to the landlord or building manager.
Rule #1: Don’t Pick by Advertised Bandwidth - Measure True Internet Performance
Why does a 1 Gbps advertised connection feel like dial-up on Monday mornings? Because raw bandwidth is only one metric. Latency, jitter, packet loss, and contention determine whether cloud apps, VoIP, and video calls stay usable. What should you test? Run a mix of tests at different times: morning peak, lunch hour, and late afternoon. Use Speedtest to record download and upload, then test latency and packet loss to a business-class target. Does latency spike above 50 ms during peak times? That’s a red flag for VoIP. Are uploads consistently below what's advertised? Ask the building to show you the SLA for latency and packet loss.
Specific rule of thumb: for 15 knowledge workers who do video calls and cloud apps, aim for at least 150 Mbps symmetric with sub-30 ms consistent latency and packet loss under 0.1%. If staff use heavy collaboration tools or large file sync, plan for 5-10 Mbps per user concurrently and add a buffer - don’t assume everyone will behave politely. Want a quick on-site test? Plug an Ethernet cable into a spare wall port, run Speedtest and an iPerf test to a known endpoint, and check results during a weekday morning. If the landlord resists an on-site test, that’s a negotiation point: ask for a trial period or a temporary business-grade connection before you sign.
Rule #2: Prioritize Sheltered MRT Access - Rain Means Real Costs
How much does a wet commute matter? More than most founders think. In cities with heavy rain and a central rail network, sheltered MRT access changes arrival times, punctuality, and the perception of your workplace. Do you want staff dripping onto your floor tile and taking an extra 15 minutes to dry off before a meeting? That adds up. Ask: is the building directly connected to a covered walkway or MRT exit? Is the route continuous, or are there gaps that force staff into open rain? Check the route at peak rainy times if you can.
Quantify the impact: if 20 staff lose an average of 10 minutes of productive time twice a week due to walking in the rain and getting settled, that’s 400 lost minutes weekly - over 6,400 minutes monthly. At an average loaded cost of $30 per hour per employee, that’s roughly $3,200 a month in lost productive time just from minor delays. You also must consider hiring: will a candidate choose your office if the covered walk from MRT is a soggy 10-minute exposure? During interviews, some candidates silently rule out jobs based on the daily commute in rain. If sheltered access is weak, ask the landlord about plans for covered linkways, shared canopies, or priority entrances - and get commitments in writing where possible.
Rule #3: Build Multiple Paths - Dual ISPs, 4G/5G Failover, and Power Backups
Is a single fiber pipe enough? For small offices it might be fine for the first year. For teams doing remote meetings, financial transactions, or customer support, redundancy is vital. What redundancy options should you demand? At a minimum, ask about the building’s diversity of fiber entry points. Does the building have a single riser that becomes a single point of failure if someone digs up the street? Better buildings will advertise multiple carrier entries and a meet-me room (MMR) for easy cross-connection.
Advanced techniques for stability: multihoming with two different ISPs and BGP gives automatic failover at the IP level; if that’s overkill for your size, a combined setup of primary fiber and secondary 4G/5G router with automatic failover works well. Use an SD-WAN or simple router that can failover based on packet loss thresholds. Power matters too - ask about UPS coverage for tenant floors and whether the landlord offers generator backup that keeps telecom equipment running. Test planned failover: ask to flip the primary line off briefly to see how long failover takes. If failover takes more than 60 seconds, consider negotiating for improved systems - that minute of downtime could cost you a client.
Rule #4: Measure Productivity Costs - Translate Downtime into Dollars
How much is one hour of total outage worth? Many landlords think uptime is a technicality; tenants think in lost hours. Let’s put real numbers on the pain: imagine a 50-employee office where 30 people are knowledge workers at an average loaded cost of $40 per hour. One hour offline for those 30 people equals $1,200 in immediate labor cost, plus potential client churn if deadlines slip. Over a year, even a few such incidents can exceed the rent gap between two buildings.
Ask for historical outage records and ask landlords for an incident log for the last 12 months. What caused outages - building-level power, carrier fiber cuts, or internal wiring? Negotiate financial remedies tied to uptime: a rent credit for outages longer than X hours, or a clause requiring the landlord to provide temporary coworking spaces if the building remains unusable. Also calculate intangible costs: slower hiring, lowered staff morale, and opportunity cost for lost sales. When you put those numbers in front of a landlord they suddenly pay attention - landlords can often arrange for better service or include SLA clauses if you can demonstrate quantified risk.
Rule #5: Test On-site Wireless Coverage, Cabling, and Shared Infrastructure
Is the landlord’s promise of "excellent Wi-Fi" just a phrase? Wireless performance depends on AP placement, ceiling materials, and how close neighboring networks are. Walk the space with a phone and an app that measures dBm and SNR. Are signals weak in corners? Is the conference room an RF dead zone? Also inspect the riser and telecom room: is there a clean, accessible meet-me room where carriers cross-connect? Is there a designated telecom riser space that reaches your floor without patching through noisy neighbor infrastructure?
Specific things to check: ceiling height affects AP coverage and may require more APs if ceilings are high; raised floors can simplify cabling and cooling; presence of PoE switches in the comms closet makes future APs and cameras easier. Ask about building fiber faceplates in-suite - will you need to pull cable through common areas? For multipart offices, check if the building supports multiple tenant demarc points so you can deploy separate networks without cross-talk. If the landlord resists upgrades, offer a cost-share arrangement: they fund the fiber drop if you commit to a longer lease or higher fit-out budget.
Your 30-Day Action Plan: Pick and Secure a CBD Office That Works
Ready to act? Here’s a practical 30-day plan to go from listing to signing with confidence. Week 1: shortlist three buildings that meet basic rent and location criteria. For each, map the sheltered MRT route - make the walk in heavy rain or at least study covered path maps and photos. Ask building managers for outage logs and carrier lists. Week 2: run internet and wireless tests on-site at three times of day. Bring a laptop, Ethernet cable, and a phone with a Wi-Fi analyzer. Record speed, latency, and Wi-Fi dead zones. Week 3: request evidence of fiber entry diversity and ask about UPS and generator coverage. Negotiate trial connectivity or temporary business-grade service before lease propertynet.sg start. Ask for a clause tying rent credits to outages over a threshold.
Week 4: finalize negotiations with these specific asks: (1) a written commitment on sheltered access improvements or ingress points, (2) an SLA or outage credit schedule, (3) permission to install secondary 4G/5G failover hardware, and (4) clarity on meet-me room and riser access for future carrier diversity. Want a cheat-sheet for negotiation? Offer a slightly longer lease in exchange for a landlord-funded fiber drop or dedicated landlord support during fit-out. Summary: translate non-obvious costs into dollars, push for measured tests and written commitments, and prioritize sheltered access if your team commutes by rail. Can you get everything? Not always. But asking these questions separates a place that looks cheap on paper from one that runs your business without drama.
Comprehensive Summary
Cheap rent alone is a false economy when internet issues and poor sheltered access erode productivity and morale. Test real internet performance, quantify downtime costs, and demand redundancy. Walk the sheltered MRT links in bad weather, inspect the building telecom infrastructure, and secure measurable commitments in the lease. Use the 30-day plan to keep the process focused and negotiable. Ask yourself: what will it cost if the office can’t handle a single hour of outage during a big proposal day? If that number exceeds the monthly rent savings, you know which building to pick.
Final question: if you could guarantee uninterrupted connectivity and a dry commute for your team, how much more would you be willing to pay per month? Put that number into your lease negotiations, and you’ll start picking buildings that actually support the work behind the coffee and the elevator pitch.