I have been looking in my area for a good office/warehouse space for lease but haven't turned up much.  Starting to look into buying a property instead so I am looking for some insight.  I know the typical residential rent vs buy but is there any gotchas to commercial property?

Examples:
2500sf with 500sf office and 1500sf warehouse - Lease for 1k a month - crowded area in town

2500sf that will have to have office built out in it - Purchase and payments will be about $900mo - Comes with 4.3 acres on the edge of town

First thought is to go with the purchase but not sure.  Either building would suit my needs.

Any ideas?

Kind of depends on your budget. How important is it to you to build equity? It will cost more from what you say after taxes maintenance and whatnot.

I dont like renting commercial property but sometimes you have to. We rented for 5 years and paid 240k on a property worth 100k.

That was the right decision at the time.

Then we bought a property for 450k, downsized and now it sits vacant. Its been vacant for 2 years and hasnt sold yet.

That was the right decision at the time.

If you're having trouble locating property, so are others. Maybe split off part of your building for income to offset your costs and diversify in case your business slows down.

Leasing gives you a greater level of flexibility than you will find when you own a property. If you want to go larger or smaller you can.

With a gross lease you aren't on the hook for any of the bills. Even in a NNN lease you won't have to pay for capital improvements or certain large repairs.

A lot of companies like to lease because they don't want to be in the real estate business.

You personally buy the building, and then have your company lease it from you.

You gain value in the property, the company writes off the expense of rent.  

When all is said and done, you can sell or lease to someone else the building you own and profit.

Short term, You pay less taxes on rent income vs. payroll income.