Getting a place? Small or big or what and how?

[Lucian]

The dilemma is caused by 1. time pressure (we need to have a place
shortly) 2. money pressure (in the current group (?) we do not have
enough)

Getting a small place
Pro: To mitigate 1. and 2. we think we can get a smaller place faster
(less work, less time) and cheaper.
Possible problems - Is a small place interesting for us at all? It is
clear that what we want to do needs a bit of a bigger place. Is it
really less work? How can a small place postpone or make impossible
some of our goals. Is it not short-sightedness to go for the small
place?
Once decided on it we have to (minimum) - look for places, decide on
one, try to get a contract/ get accepted, verify the contract, move
in.

Getting a big(ger) place. (Torstr. 23)
Pro: We would be able to do more of the things we are planning on.
Better space, noise, privacy management.
Con: We may not get it in time (it happened before), It costs about
10.000E to start it and about 3000E/month minimum to continue.
Once decided for it - we start from negotiating/verifying the
contract, search for more people, move in.

There is no way for me to be able to reasonably evaluate the
distinctions because: We may be quite unlucky for a small place and
need more work and time than expected. At the same time we may go very
fast with getting the contract in a good shape and finding people
interested and able to join. We have a bit more then a month (and
there's little happening at the end of Dec. and beginning of Jan both
in terms of people and in terms of immo firms)

I actually think we're not in a fantastic position for either option.
Both can go wrong easily as we already have experienced.

I would suggest working on both fronts starting now which means
probably a lot more work shared but would give us better chances with
less to worry about. If we get a smaller place easy we are not going
to have a significant sum of money blocked in Kaution, (probably no
more then 2000E), the rent would be small enough and it wouldn't be
too complicated to rent it away if we don't need it anymore.
If we clarify and get the right contract for Torstr. 23 we would just
need to postpone signing it until we feel comfortable (have the people
and the money for it). People can gather in the smaller place until we
have the necessary mass to move in. We can decide later what to do
with the small place.
Obviously blocking some money in the small place means more work with
administrative things and probably even postponing a bit a move to a
bigger place. On the other hand it would give a sense of security, a
better position to negotiate for a bigger place, and a place where
more people can save money easier and better corelate a move to the
bigger place.