5 Reasons Not to Buy Above Unfinished Retail

For three years we have lived directly above a massive unfinished retail space, that space is now in the process of being built out.

Here are at least five reasons not to buy above unfinished retail:

1. Eye sore: Unfinished retail is usually plastered with ads letting prospective retailers know that it is available. These ads generally use cheesy stock photography and look terrible.
2. Nothing to enjoy: It’s hard to enjoy empty retail space. But retail space with a restaurant, bar, gym, shop, etc, that is easy (though sometimes costly) to enjoy.
3. Higher heating bills: In the winter, why heat an unused space when you can leave it unheated? The only downside is for those directly above the space because the cold seeps in raising your heating bills.
4. Higher cooling bills: In the summer, why cool an unused space when you can leave it a sauna? We’d cool our space down to 70′ this summer, it’d be <70' outside and yet the heat in our unit would steadily rise once we closed our windows. I blame the hot air rushing in from below.
5. Buildout sucks: Once the retail space is leased you have to live through months of 12-14 hour a day construction. Fortunately we wake up before they start which is just after 7 am and try and drown the noise with music when we come home.