Gyms are closed, and outdoor exercise may feel too risky for some. So, how is a person supposed to blow off steam during quarantine?
Enter the “Peloton room.”
Karen Burman | Credit: Karen Sterling for Douglas Elliman
“If you look at how many gyms are in the city, New Yorkers really care about working out,” Karen Burman, a broker at Douglas Elliman, told Inman.
Burman, a cyclist herself, understands the challenges of finding a workout space during quarantine. So when she saw her sellers’ Peloton at 622 West End Avenue, she saw potential in the home’s foyer for something more.
Floor plan for 622 West End Avenue | Credit: VHT Studios
Now, the 5’0″ x 8’9″ area near the apartment’s entrance is dubbed “Work/Peloton Area” in the home’s floor plan.
“Do you want … room for a Peloton? Of course!” Burman enthusiastically exclaims, while showing off the workout area (by pedaling up out of the bike’s saddle) in the listing video.
“They’ve re-calibrated what’s important to them,” Burman says. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, buyers are now looking for an apartment that’s “self-contained so that [they] can [fulfill] all [their] needs.”
Who needs a foyer anyways if that space can be reinterpreted as a workout area?
Susan Abrams, an associate broker at Warburg Realty, said her seller at 70 East 10th Street moved their Peloton into a space that was originally intended as an office at the beginning of the pandemic. Instead of re-staging the room into an office, as its designated in the floor plan, Abrams decided to keep the bike where it was to highlight the room’s alternate use.
An office reinvented as a workout studio at 70 East 10th Street | Credit: Warburg Realty
Susan Abrams | Warburg Realty
“When we [Abrams and her co-listing broker/husband Michael Abrams] started to think about what is going to happen and what people are going to want and desire in spaces since this pandemic … we realized that the ability for an apartment to have a space either for an office or a gym is going to be paramount,” Abrams said.
During the current climate, Abrams said it’s to any agent’s advantage to highlight opportunities for flexible spaces in a home. She noted that the 70 East 10th Street’s Peloton room could even fit a modestly sized desk in addition to a stationary bike.
Although those with small home spaces will need to get creative, Abrams anticipates a shift in buyer demand from smaller apartments that feature shared amenities to larger pre and post-war apartments that are self-sustaining.
Some agents like Scott Harris, a broker with Brown Harris Stevens, are trying to find new, modern uses for small rooms in older homes that were typically reserved as maids quarters. Turns out, they work great as exercise rooms.
Scott Harris | Brown Harris Stevens
“There are these bonus rooms that are perfect as home offices and they’re perfect as Peloton rooms,” Harris said. “There’s no question that when you have a bedroom that is less than eight feet wide, then your target for that bedroom is probably for a younger child, or some alternate use.”
As buyers begin to consider ways to facilitate more everyday activities from home, agents who help show them new ways for using space may gain a competitive advantage.
“Our job all the time is to create a vision of what living can look like in an apartment,” Harris said. “Peloton use and work-from-home arrangements are on everyone’s mind, and I think it’s wise of us to be considering them.”
