In the midst of the pandemic shutdown, our architect finished the drawings. As the scientific community was gaining understanding of how the virus worked and the governments were slowly adapting their guidance based on the knowledge, the citizens of the world were trying to get on with life. We met the architect on the street, near his car. We all were masked and we maintained as much distance as possible as we discussed the work. He had been updating us along the way, so we were happy with the results and we all went our separate ways.
We still had not found an engineer to help us. We resorted to asking friends, asking friends of friends, cold-calling engineering offices and begging anyone to work with us. As the world began to slowly return to normal and offices opened up, we still did not have an engineer to help us. At the same time, we began hearing scary phrases such as ‘storm water plan,’ and ‘environmental study,’ that may be required in order to change the zone and build out a parking lot as we needed.
Two years after we purchased the building and we still had not approached the town about the zoning change other than occasionally seeking information about requirements. We were at the point of total frustration.
We considered our options and at that time there was a real estate boom in our area due to people moving out of NYC and Philadelphia to work from home. I believe that this boom was caused by everyone trapped in their apartments and feeling claustrophobic. All the benefits of city life such a restaurants, theater, activities, museums, etc. were of no value when everything was closed down and people were not allowed to gather in groups. On the other hand, hiking trails and nature walks became the latest craze and everyone wanted to be close to the woods.
With the high demand for real estate, we considered selling the building. The biggest point of resistance was the idea that the building was a part of our investment program and retirement plan. We still wanted a building for the yoga studio, and the one aspect that many people forget with regard to buying or selling their home is that they still need some place to live and so they must either buy something, rent something or have another plan. While our building was not necessary for living, the basic calculus still applied in that we still wanted a building for the studio. If not now, at some point soon. And so the question as it related to us was, if we sell the building to take advantage of the real estate market, do we suffer in the long term because we will need one later on. So, should we keep the building even if we cannot put the yoga studio in the building because we purchased it at a very good price and use the equity at a later date to purchase another building for the yoga studio.