What NNN actually costs a tenant in Ventura County, and the four charges nobody mentions on the tour.
NNN means triple net. The quoted rate is base rent only. On top of it you pay your pro-rata share of three additional categories: property taxes, building insurance, and common area maintenance. In Ventura County those charges typically add $0.45 to $0.85 per square foot per month, which lands 20 to 40 percent above the number you were quoted.
A landlord quotes you $2.25 a square foot. You do the math on the drive home, decide the number works, and start thinking about paint colors and where the counter goes.
The number you did math on was not the number.
There’s a scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles where Del Griffith opens a trunk full of shower curtain rings and sells them as earrings. Nobody lied. The rings were exactly what they were. The buyer just filled in the rest of the story themselves. That’s a commercial lease quote. The rate is real. It’s also about 60 percent of what you’re going to write a check for every month.
Triple net means three categories of expense pass through to you on top of base rent: property taxes, building insurance, and common area maintenance (CAM). Your share is calculated by dividing your square footage by the building’s, then applying that percentage to the total bill.
The three lease types you’ll actually be shown in this market:
| Lease type | What the quoted rate covers | What you pay on top |
|---|---|---|
| Full Service Gross | Base rent, taxes, insurance, CAM, and usually utilities and janitorial | Very little. Common in Class A office. |
| Modified Gross | Base rent plus some operating costs, varies deal to deal | Utilities, janitorial, sometimes your share of increases over a base year |
| Triple Net (NNN) | Base rent only | Taxes, insurance, CAM, utilities, and interior maintenance |
Most retail, industrial, and flex space in Ventura County is quoted NNN. If a listing shows a rate and the letters NNN next to it, that rate is the floor, not the ceiling.
This is where the money hides, because CAM is a category, not a line item. Landscaping. Parking lot sweeping and resurfacing. Exterior lighting. Trash. Common area water and power. Security. Property management fees commonly run 3 to 5 percent of gross rents or appear as a 10 to 15 percent administrative load on top of the CAM pool itself.
Then there’s the one that catches people: capital expenditures. If the landlord replaces the roof or repaves the lot and the lease doesn’t exclude capital items, your share of a $180,000 roof can land in your CAM reconciliation. On a 2,000-square-foot suite in a 10,000-square-foot building, that’s $36,000 with your name on it.
Nobody mentions this on the tour. It isn’t a trick. It’s just in paragraph 12, while the tour is a conversation about foot traffic.
Here’s the full stack on a typical Ventura retail suite. Rates are illustrative for structure, so verify against current comparables before relying on them.
Figures shown are an illustration on a single example deal, not a quote.
| Line item | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Base rent, 2,000 SF at $2.25/SF | $4,500 | $54,000 |
| NNN, 2,000 SF at $0.65/SF | $1,300 | $15,600 |
| Your utilities | $400 | $4,800 |
| Your liability insurance | $150 | $1,800 |
| HVAC service contract | $100 | $1,200 |
| Total occupancy cost | $6,450 | $77,400 |
The quoted rate was $2.25. Your true cost is $3.23 per square foot per month. That’s a 43 percent gap and $23,400 a year more than the number you built your business plan on.
If your business plan had room for $23,400 of surprise, you’re in better shape than most. If it didn’t, that gap is the whole reason this post exists.
Under Proposition 13, California property tax is capped at 1 percent of assessed value, plus voter-approved local assessments, so effective rates typically land between 1.1 and 1.25 percent. The cap holds until the property changes ownership. Then it reassesses at the new purchase price.
Say the building you’re in is assessed at $1.2 million and sells for $3 million. Annual property tax goes from roughly $13,200 to roughly $33,000. That $19,800 increase gets distributed across the tenants. You didn’t renegotiate anything. You didn’t sign anything new. Your rent went up because the landlord sold a building.
Unless your lease excludes reassessment triggered by a change of ownership. That is a sentence you can ask for, and almost nobody asks for it.
Load factor. In a multi-tenant building you’re quoted rentable square feet, not usable. A 15 percent load factor means you pay for 2,000 and occupy about 1,740. That’s legitimate and standard. It’s also worth knowing before you plan a floor layout around square footage you don’t have.
Escalations. Most leases in this market carry a 3 percent annual bump or a CPI adjustment on base rent. Over a five-year term, a $4,500 base rent becomes roughly $5,065. Your NNN escalates separately and independently, based on actual costs.
Film study, not guesswork. These are the asks that change the number:
Under California AB 2093, a commercial landlord must state whether the property has been inspected by a Certified Access Specialist. If it hasn’t, ADA compliance for your space may become your problem and your cost.
Every one of these is a sentence. Not a lawsuit, not a fight, not a hardball move that blows up the deal. A sentence, asked for before signature, when you still have the only leverage you’re ever going to have.
Once you sign, you’re not negotiating. You’re complying.
We are on your
side of the table.
Roughly 85% of small-business tenants sign a commercial lease with no representation of their own—across the table from a broker whose legal duty runs entirely to the landlord.
You can read every clause in a 40-page lease and still not know which ones are negotiable in this market this month. That part isn’t research. That part is reps.
In addition. A listing quoted at $2.25 NNN means $2.25 per square foot per month of base rent, plus your share of taxes, insurance, and common area maintenance on top of it.
Most multi-tenant retail, industrial, and flex space runs $0.45 to $0.85 per square foot per month. Older centers with deferred maintenance and newer centers with heavy amenities both trend higher. Always ask for the last two years of actual reconciliations rather than the estimate.
Yes, and they usually do. NNN is a pass-through of actual costs, so it rises with taxes, insurance premiums, and maintenance. A sale of the building can reset property taxes mid-lease under Prop 13. Caps on controllable expenses are the standard protection.
Gross rent bundles operating expenses into one number the landlord pays out of. NNN separates them and passes your share through. A $3.00 gross rate and a $2.25 NNN rate can cost the same, or the NNN deal can cost more. You cannot compare two spaces by quoted rates alone.
In most NNN leases, the tenant maintains and repairs the units serving their own space, including replacement. This is one of the largest unbudgeted costs new tenants hit. Get a landlord warranty on existing equipment and an annual cap on your obligation.
An annual true-up. You pay an estimate monthly, then the landlord compares estimates with actual spending and bills or credits the difference. Reconciliations are where surprise charges surface, and where audit rights earn their keep.
Sam Benner is a co-founder of The Lease League, a commercial tenant representation firm in Ventura serving Ventura and Santa Barbara County. DRE #01937028. Licensed in 2013, he works exclusively on the tenant side, never for landlords. The Lease League’s fee is paid by the landlord, which makes representation free to the tenant. 472 E Santa Clara Street, Ventura, CA (805) 203-6365
Understand the complete occupancy cost before signing.
Local considerations for choosing and negotiating retail space.
Or call (805) 203-6365 | 472 E Santa Clara Street, Ventura, CA
