When 'Highest and Best Use' Means Letting Go

For most commercial real estate professionals, the concept of "highest and best use" is straightforward: identify the most profitable use case of a property given market conditions, zoning, and development potential. But what happens when that analysis leads a mission-driven organization to a counterintuitive conclusion: that their property's greatest value lies in letting it go?

Faith and Family Foundation, which serves over 100 students weekly through therapeutic horseback riding and para-equestrian programs, faced exactly this question with their historic Wheatland Farm property in Loudoun County, Virginia. After more than a decade of operations, founder Muriel Forrest, her co-founder and husband Mark Forrest, and the board made a decision that challenged conventional nonprofit thinking: the 43-acre property would serve their mission better as an endowment through a strategic sale than as an operating campus.

The upcoming Crexi auction of Wheatland Farm represents more than a sophisticated real estate transaction. It's a case study in strategic capital redeployment that holds lessons for brokers, institutional investors, and nonprofit leaders navigating similar inflection points.

The Market Context: When Location Becomes a Constraint

Loudoun County's transformation from rural Virginia landscape to one of the Washington, D.C. region's most sought-after markets created an unusual challenge for the Foundation. The very factors that made Wheatland Farm valuable—proximity to the capital, historic significance, development-ready infrastructure—also made expansion impossible.

"As our program grew, so did the county," Forrest explains. "We grew to have 24 horses on 43 acres. We wanted to host clinics, horse shows, that kind of thing. But this section of Loudoun County has really grown with wineries, breweries, restaurants. It became a very sought-after area on weekends for our DC neighbors."

The result? Landlocked growth. With land demand soaring and contiguous acreage unavailable, the Foundation faced operational constraints that no amount of capital investment could solve. You can't expand a therapeutic riding program when the neighboring parcels are commanding premium prices for lifestyle and hospitality uses—and aren’t even on the market.

This is the first lesson for brokers working with institutional or mission-driven clients: sometimes the highest and best use analysis isn't about what you could build on a property—it's about recognizing when your operational needs and the market's valuation have meaningfully diverged.

Calculating the Exit Strategy

Forrest presented the board with a solution framework for their reality, that the property had become more valuable as liquidity than as infrastructure.

The Foundation required specific operational criteria; significant acreage (more than the 43 on Wheatland Farm) for turnout and riding, competition-grade facilities for para-equestrian athletes training at Olympic levels, and space to expand programming. Landlocked Wheatland Farm, despite its $10+ million in improvements since acquisition, couldn't deliver on the expansion component.

Meanwhile, Loudoun County's market dynamics were driving extraordinary appreciation. The property sits just 45 minutes from downtown Washington, D.C., along the Dulles Corridor, in an area experiencing acute shortage of both event venues and executive retreat space. The venue itself seats 300 with views that can't be replicated in urban hotel ballrooms, while the equestrian facilities represent state-of-the-art infrastructure including International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI)-quality footing used at international competitions.

Holding an appreciated asset that constrained operations made less sense than converting that appreciation into an endowment that could fund expanded services, new vocational training programs for adults aging out of special education, and veteran services.

"My goal is to make sure that our students, their families, and our community have the services they need from me," Forrest says. "What's really important about this sale is not just the here and now, but the future. Our success at selling Wheatland Farm for a good number provides the Faith and Family Foundation with an endowment for the future."

Why Auction Made Strategic Sense

The Foundation's decision to pursue auction over traditional listing wasn't arbitrary. According to broker Joe Serafin, representing the property, the choice was intentional.

"Selling the property at auction made strategic sense because the Foundation needed certainty of execution within a defined timeframe, a fully qualified buyer pool, and a path to market that removed contingencies while maximizing competitive tension. This asset doesn't fit a single buyer profile, and an auction allows multiple buyer types to compete simultaneously.

Crexi was the clear platform choice due to the team's professionalism, proven track record, and hands-on collaboration. They work closely with us on targeted marketing, stay deeply engaged throughout the process, and bring a level of focus and execution that is critical for a complex, high-profile property like Wheatland Farm." 

Working with Crexi, they identified several factors that made an auction sale the optimal path:

Property Uniqueness Requires Maximum Exposure

Wheatland Farm isn't a commodity asset. The 285-year-old property features Colonial-era structures where George Washington reportedly stayed during the Revolutionary War, plus Daniel Boone's last cottage relocated stone-by-stone from Kentucky. These aren't amenities that fit neatly into comparable sales matrices.

Multiple Buyer Profiles Create Competition

The property works for completely different use cases—high-end equestrian training facility, boutique event venue and wedding destination, executive retreat center, or private estate. Each represents a distinct buyer persona with different pro forma assumptions. Auction format allows these segments to compete simultaneously rather than sequencing marketing efforts across channels.

Operational Urgency Demands Timeline Certainty

The Foundation had already identified and secured their new location with expanded acreage. They relocated 24 horses, all equipment, and staff in 10 days between Christmas and New Year's, reopening operations on schedule when students returned from winter break. Traditional listing timelines—six months to a year for properties at this price point—would have created costly dual-facility carrying costs, so they chose auctions to sell quickly and efficiently.

Market Timing Justified Immediate Action

While Forrest emphasizes that operational constraints drove the decision rather than market speculation, the convergence of a supply-constrained market, multiple high-profile Loudoun County sales establishing price discovery, and regional demand for event and retreat space created a window worth capturing.

The Buyer Thesis: Dual Pathways to ROI

Forrest and her team identified two distinct buyer profiles, each with compelling economics:

The Equestrian Operator: For high-end trainers working with horses valued in the millions, Wheatland Farm offers infrastructure that would cost multiples to replicate—20-stall barn with extra-large stalls and automatic waterers connected to an indoor arena, plus outdoor competition arena with the same FEI-quality footing used at Maryland's Five Star event at Fair Hill. The ability to host boutique shows, clinics, and provide Olympic-level training in a location accessible to the DMV area's wealth corridor creates immediate revenue opportunities.

The Hospitality/Event Entrepreneur: Visit Loudoun, the county's tourism bureau, has told Forrest repeatedly that they face acute shortage of overnight retreat space capable of handling corporate groups. The property's 300-person event center, combined with existing infrastructure for parking, catering, and overnight accommodations, positions it for immediate wedding and corporate retreat business in a market where venues of this caliber command premium pricing.

Both paths offer strong returns given current Loudoun County dynamics, but more importantly, they don't require entitlement battles or construction risk. The infrastructure exists today.

Lessons for the Deal-Making Community

Wheatland Farm's trajectory from operating asset to strategic exit contains several insights worth examining:

1. Mission-Driven Doesn't Mean Market-Blind: The Foundation's decision demonstrates sophisticated real estate thinking: recognizing when a property's exchange value exceeds its use value, even for organizations where financial returns aren't the primary objective. Brokers working with nonprofit clients should help leadership teams understand that the highest expression of mission fidelity might be monetizing appreciated assets rather than holding them.
2. Operational Fit Beats Sunk Costs: Despite investing over $10 million in improvements, the Foundation didn't fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy. When operational constraints (lack of expansion capability) couldn't be solved through additional capital investment, they made the difficult call to relocate rather than optimize suboptimally.
3. Historic Designation Can Be Feature, Not Bug: Properties with significant historical elements often present marketing challenges. Wheatland Farm's Colonial-era provenance and connection to George Washington could have been viewed as a limitation. Instead, the Foundation and their advisors positioned it as a differentiator. While there are many 40-acre farms within 45 minutes of D.C.,  only one has this specific historical narrative.
4. Endowment Thinking Changes the Math: For institutions with a legacy mindset, the comparison is operational sustainability over decades, not net operating income and returns. An endowment funded by property sale can generate returns that fund operations indefinitely, removing the constant pressure of fundraising and allowing focus on program quality rather than survival.
5. Speed Has Value in Transition: The Foundation's ability to execute a complete relocation in 10 days—moving two dozen horses, equipment, and resuming full operations—meant they could pursue an accelerated marketing timeline without compromising service delivery. For institutional sellers, having the relocation plan fully developed before listing creates optionality in sale structure and timing.

Broader Market Implications

Wheatland Farm's sale arrives at an interesting moment in several overlapping market dynamics.

For nonprofit real estate strategy, the transaction represents sophisticated capital allocation. Rather than viewing properties as permanent assets, mission-driven organizations can apply private sector frameworks—highest and best use analysis, opportunity cost evaluation, endowment optimization—to long-term sustainability questions.

And for the CRE auction market, complex institutional transactions like Wheatland Farm help demonstrate the tool’s evolution beyond distressed or time-sensitive sales into strategic marketing for unique assets where competition among multiple buyer types can drive optimal pricing.

What's Next for Wheatland Farm

The property sits in a market characterized by both supply scarcity and diverse demand. Whether the successful bidder emerges from the equestrian world, hospitality sector, or private estate market, they'll be acquiring an asset with remarkable flexibility—a rare combination in Loudoun County's current environment.

For Faith and Family Foundation, the sale represents a different kind of flexibility: the ability to expand services, add vocational training programs, and build sustainable operations that don't depend on annual fundraising success. Sometimes the best real estate strategy is about knowing when to convert appreciation into mission endurance.

The auction opens with Crexi handling both marketing and transaction management, targeting a timeline that allows the Foundation to secure endowment funding while the buyer gains immediate access to fully operational, income-generating infrastructure.

It's a transaction structure that could serve as a template for other institutional sellers facing similar crossroads: when operational needs and market value diverge, the highest and best use might just be letting go.

Wheatland Farm is being offered through Crexi's auction platform. For more information on the property or to register for bidding, visit the property listing page.