Retail is a possibility but harder.

During the last housing crisis, I worked with a developer to acquire a couple of distressed notes from the bank. They were incredibly cheap, about 30 cents on a dollar. One was a mixed-use condo building, 30+ units plus first floor retail. The other was a grocery anchored shopping center. 

The condo building was 80% complete (dry walled) when we purchased it. So we finished the units and converted them into rentals. They were rented out very fast. The retail  units on the first floor were challenging because there were not enough parking in the back. There are some parking on the street, but traffic is so fast that these spots are not very useful. So it took us over a year to find the first tenant, and then another year to fill it up. Marketingwise, just hire a local retail leasing agent and make sure your price is competitive. 

The grocery anchored shopping center was brand new. The developer did a good job to get the anchors: a supermarket and a bank. But all the inline units were empty. It is challening because it is in a distressed neighborhood. People didnn't have money to spend and there were a lot of vacancies. Rents were like $5-6 net. In order to rent them out, we would have to work with low quality tenants. Even these types of tenants, we had to wait until their existing leases expired. My boss decided not to work with them becuase that would make the shopping center look less desirable. So these inline units were empty for years. 

We owned several shopping centers in nice suburbs or good areas of downtown. The centers in suburbs are all located on high traffic road with good visibility. They are either anchored by grocery store, or shadow anchored by large big box stores. They are typically very new. You want to make sure the anchor's business is stable, and the real estate, demographics are strong, and location is good. The real estate will be active for a long long time- you want to look for "longvity champion". Otherwise, the shopping centers can beome idle - or even died prematurally. 

This key to manage this type of shopping centers is the anchor. You want to understand their business very well and make friends with them. Inline tenants are usually local credit and more sensitive to economic volatility. It is not uncommon that a couple of stores go dark for a few months, and during the recession, even for a year. So you would need to budget enough reserve to fund the TI, LC, and rent loss for the turnovers. 

There are many common things between residential and retail. Location, construction/design, tenant, finance, market, all the same. However, retails are more location sensitive. Parking, entrance, and exit, traffic count, traffic speed and pattern, stop signs all matter. You will need to understand the business of your tenants and pick the strongest tenants. You will need a good property manager and leasing broker to keep  your center desirable, get the right tenants, do your budget, figure out your CAM reimbursement. You, as an owner and asset manager, work with your lender and equity investors, manage the property cash flow, mortgage, and distributions. When the time is right, you may want to refinance or sell. 

So retail is a much sexy but riskier. If you do it well, it is fun and financially rewarding!