Many people use garage as weekend entertainment center.

Facebook expanding to that new tower at Willow and 101, and gobbling up all nearby buildings near HQ is front and center in my decision process. 

For single tenant net lease that is absolute NNN then yes an owner typically does nothing.For MTNL -multi tenant net lease then even though in many cases absolute NNN with base plus CAM you still gave to look out for CAM caps and large Capex expenses the owner would usually pay upfront and try to recover over time.For instance if you are buying a center looking at roof and parking lot are 2 big ones.

These 'Micropolis' or mini cities exist all over the US, they are centers of there county and although they are stagnant in job and population growth, they are a necessity for all surrounding towns.  

We meet at a church family center dining hall $40.00/ meeting.

That is a profit center that no one else would be able to touch, so it'll work even if they lose money on the mortgages themselves.

If you are looking to jump to commercial properties (strip malls, shopping centers, office, industrial, etc) you are not really "starting small" at that point.

Desirability in SA seems to be heavily driven by school ratings for family homes, and proximity to the bases or medical center for smaller units (condos or apts).

Does anyone expect home prices to rise of the next few years in Garner now that Amazon is bringing a new distribution center there?

It has been used as a retreat, recovery center and Bed n Breakfast.Now it is time to sell.