Bell Road Office Park › Guides › What NNN means

What does NNN mean on an office lease?

Base rent plus three additional costs. The three Ns are property taxes, building insurance, and common area maintenance. You pay your proportional share of each on top of base rent. A rate quoted as $17/SF NNN is the base only, not your total.
Nproperty taxes
Nbuilding insurance
Ncommon area maintenance
Base rentquoted separately

What it looks like on a real suite

Take Suite 100B in this building: 726 square feet at $17 per SF. That is $12,342 a year, or about $1,029 a month. That is the base. Your NNN share is billed on top, usually as a monthly estimate that gets reconciled once a year against what the building actually spent.

The number you want before signing anything is the current operating expense estimate per square foot. Any broker should hand that over without hesitating. If someone quotes you a rate and gets vague about the NNN figure, that is worth noticing.

Bell Road Office Park, a renovated single-story office building in north Phoenix

Quick questions

Is NNN the same as gross rent?

No, and this is the most common mix-up. Gross rent bundles operating costs into one number. NNN separates them, so the quoted rate looks lower while your actual cost is higher.

Does the NNN amount change?

Yes. It is usually estimated monthly and reconciled annually against actual building expenses, so it can move year to year.

What should I ask a broker?

Ask for the current operating expense estimate per square foot, and ask how it has moved over the last two or three years.