Cities form, grow, shrink, decay, then urbanize and cycle over again. 

Now it's decayed remnants of times passed.

Some people are blinded to decay in their homes or will downplay exactly how bad it is.

@Austin Stegall there is an Arsenal there which brings in some work, but to be honest I believe that is decaying as well.

Vermin love to chew on the wiring, but they can really do a number on old, decaying electrical work.

I visited a city in North Dakota that many decent homes were being abandoned (more than 50% of the homes had been abandoned over the previous ~20 years) to slowly decay away.   

The two counter act each other.The only way to get your cake and eat it too is to go conventional, but the down side there is higher down payments.What is your strategy here?

If you don't, you will create a mold problem and the wood structure will start to decay and rot out on you. 

That's pretty much double the expected return of the stock market over the long haul.That probably overstates things a bit, as your return on equity decays over time as the property is paid down, plus the transaction cost is quite high.

---------------------------One major thing that could disrupt or take advantage of these trends is cheap modular multifamily construction to replace our ever-decaying residential construction housing stock.