Dumb Luck During A Crisis
The COVID-19 crises shows me how awesome luck can be.
The Teardown
Friday :: July 24th, 2020
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I hope all of you are safe and healthy in the midst of your respective COVID-19 situations. I’ve lived temporarily outside of New York City for over four months. This particular newsletter isn’t about news or other specific business topic. I wanted to send a quick bit of thinking as life has been anything but normal and the focus to write infrequent at best.
I balk at posting regularly on Twitter or LinkedIn despite the public nature of this newsletter. The tweet below motivated a response:
I questioned whether to publicly announce that purchase. Still, I marveled again at how lucky I was to close a real estate transaction in mid-April in the New York area. This region was wading through equal parts panic and lock-down. I remember worrying that I was locking my wealth into an asset with value tied to a rapidly-eroding city.
The ultimate impact of COVID-19 on the New York region and elsewhere remains to be seen, but one outcome is clear: other-than-city life is all the rage. Suburban homeowners are renting out their properties for sums well above their mortgage commitments. Vacation destinations customarily reserved for summer seasons will likely hold onto seasonal residents and wealthy renters for much longer than usual.
Luck struck me in the most extraordinary way possible because I avoided ballooning pricing affecting so many suburban areas. Sleep these days is a bit better because I'm not dreaming about thirteen-way bidding wars (yes, that's a real example). Others aren't so lucky at all. They've lost their jobs, or may soon lose them. They've lost access to critical school routines that provides younger and older kids alike with a structure not possible at home - especially with working parents. Many business owners are watching their life's work evaporate into the same airborne ether that carries the cause of all this anguish.
That said, I hope life isn't only about money. I realize that such a statement is possible because I have the means to push my life forward without significant disruption. More specifically, life is also about all of the little things that you take for granted when everything runs smoothly.
Those of us with kids watch them grow but in parts. We're in the office or at least not at home most of the waking day, and consume little doses of development during the morning and evening hours. Most parents say things like "time flies" and "they grow up so fast" with amusing desperation, but now we're witnessing all of the time we otherwise would've lost. I've watched my daughter's speech expand enormously from ten words to full sentences. I saw elementary and middle-school-aged kids breeze or struggle through virtual learning experiences.
What's clear is I don't want to go back to the time when I don't see this much of my daughter and perhaps my future mini-clones. The question then is what arrangement will ensure enough future face-time to ensure proper career and income growth and quality time at home.
I'm interested to hear from some of you about your respective situations and what you think you will do over the next year or two. Feel free to email me if you feel comfortable. I'll compile the most exciting bits into some other thoughts without revealing anybody's personal info.