Home Based Business: The Right Choice

What are the zoning laws in your neighborhood? 

 Some cities have very definite rules about where businesses may be located.  Some housing developments have associations that prohibit people operating commercial ventures from their home. 

Check your local codes, ask your neighbors, talk to anyone else in your neighborhood that you know might be operating a business from their home.

Once you’ve determined what is and what is not permissible in your area you have another starting point to factor into your decision about which business venture to pursue.
If you’re in a condo of controlled neighborhood and the association rules strictly prohibit any commercial ventures you could probably still maintain an area from which you do the paperwork for your business. 

The main thing a condo association would want to be controlling is foot traffic – people coming to your home to conduct their business when you are located in a residential neighborhood.
Sometimes those rules can be stretched and sometimes they are absolutely etched in granite.  You want to be sure which it is before you go out and commit to spending an amount of money each month on storefront space if you can get buy with conducting business from your home location for awhile.
In an extreme situation you may want to check with the local zoning jurisdiction.  Start with the City Engineer’s office.  If they don’t handle the zoning, they will be able to tell you who does. 

More and more people are working from a home base these days – most because of the technological advances we all enjoy.  What was the norm even five years ago has changed drastically.  Maybe the laws need to be updated to reflect those changes.
The thing you are trying to avoid here is being part of that 90% that fail in their business ventures within the first year.  Most of those people fail because they do not control their start-up costs.

 
Start up costs are things like rent on office space, fancy pieces of equipment, inventory items you can do without, extra help when you could push to do the work yourselves.  It all adds up and the more of that money you can keep in your pocket, the better a chance you have to survive those early months and hopefully get your business venture on the road to profitability.

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