Canadian Startup SpaceList Looking To Make Commercial Leasing Easier

By: Talha Bhatti  |   December 31st, 2012   |   Business, News, O Canada

Bill MacEwen came up with the idea for his startup SpaceList after he spent some time in Vancouver looking for a venue to start a co-working space. The Canadian entrepreneur spoke with TechVibes about the experience, saying that, “I walked all of downtown Vancouver like a grid … making note of every ‘for lease’ sign I saw. Meeting with brokers and landowners was quite an adventure too. It took me forever to find something suitable but I eventually came across a 5,000-square-foot loft in Gastown. I had no experience leasing anything more than my modest apartment and was a bit shocked when the 40-page lease agreement landed on my desk. There was clearly more to this commercial leasing thing than I knew at the time.”

 

MacEwen went through several more commercial real estate leasing incidents before starting SpaceList. He co-founded SpaceList to make locating a commercial area like an office, retail venue or warehouse easy and effective. His startup hopes to bring all the commercial real estate listings in Canada to one location. Some may think that the SpaceList idea is already being done, but the business has gotten the support of Vancouver accelerator GrowLab.

 

In Canada there are quite extensive marketplaces for cars, boats and residential properties with the MLS system. However, there is a significant gap in the commercial real estate sector in the country.

 

SpaceList tries to make this an easy process by allowing anyone to add a listing for a property through email. The site has grown quickly and has gone from seven million square feet of available space for leasing in August to over 15 million by December. SpaceList is only available in Vancouver for now but 2013 will be a big year for SpaceList as it plans to expand rapidly to other cities in the country.

 

Source: TechVibes