The Three Mistakes Irish Companies Make With Their First Office Abroad
22 July 2026 · Craig Maguire, MR Commercial Real Estate
The first office abroad is a milestone. It is also where good Irish companies burn money. Rarely on the rent itself. Almost always on the deal around it. Working on office searches for founders and scaling teams, I see the same three mistakes come up again and again, and every one of them is avoidable.
The first mistake is signing too much space, for too long. It usually happens for the best of reasons. The expansion plan says the London team will be thirty people by year three, so the company signs a five-year lease sized for thirty from day one. Then hiring lands slower than the plan, or the market shifts, and suddenly you are paying for empty desks in a city where you have no fallback and no local network. The better approach in a new market is to start flexible. Serviced and managed space lets you open with the team you actually have, prove the market, and scale into bigger space when the numbers are real. The prestige lease can come later, when it is an investment rather than a gamble.
The second mistake is assuming leases abroad work the way they do at home. They do not. Deposits are calculated differently. Break clauses that are common in one market are rare in another. Fit-out might be included, or a six-figure extra. Notice periods, service charges, repair obligations, what happens at the end of the term: every market has its own rules, and they are invisible until they cost you money. What is standard in Dublin can be a costly surprise in London, Amsterdam or New York. If nobody on your side knows the local norms, you will not find out until you are committed.
The third mistake is the one that makes the first two worse: taking advice from the landlord's side of the table. In a new city, the people you will naturally deal with are the broker on the listing, the agent who answers the enquiry, and the leasing manager who gives the tour. They are helpful, knowledgeable and professional. They are also, almost without exception, paid by the landlord. Their job is to fill the building on the best terms for their client. In your home market, experience protects you. In a market you do not know, you need one person at the table whose only job is to represent you.
That is what we do at MR Commercial. We run tenant-side office searches for Irish companies in any city worldwide, through a network covering more than 110 countries. We search the full market, shortlist and tour the right options, flag the local norms before they become surprises, and negotiate the terms on your side of the table. Full market, plain English, no signing until it is right.
Landing well starts before you sign. If a first office abroad is on your roadmap, talk to us before you talk to a landlord. Get in touch at craig@mrcommercial.ie or +353 1 963 6199, or visit www.mrcommercial.ie.