Location will be critical.Older shopping centers or strip centers in great locations are being refaced and the parking lots redone to make them pop again.National tenants have a rep to uphold and have to get a certain look and feel for their image going in versus a mom and pop just looking at cost per sq ft more in a good location.If your strip is in a non premium location or where a part of the town is getting older and newer development is moving away you will be more in trouble as your cost per sq ft will go down and your tenant clientele will change.During the boom times retailers grew everywhere and new development was expanding.Now retailers see this is an excellent time to negotiate existing leases or sign new leases to get great terms before the next up cycle.Now national retailers are in a "smart and controlled growth" mode.They do not want to go somewhere just because it is 4 per sq ft less.Ultimately if they pay more but get a more central and profitable location that is key to their success.Many companies that branched out into different growth strategies have reeled back to their core values and strategies.Retail is getting the crap kicked out of it right now and is expected to continue through 2012.A lot of it depends on how much the local market is saturated.For instance clothing stores even with the closures have too many in the marketplace now unless they are filling an untapped niche."

No couches, no soft chairs, no clothes closets and no brand new cars with the exception that I did buy my wife an $80,000 Mercedes SUV about 7 years ago for a present and today the car has less than 2,000 miles on it because she doesn't want to feel like she is showing-off to her friends and our tenants.

We ate out less than a dozen times; I sewed my own maternity clothes; we only left town once (to get a check to mail back to Sallie Mae).

I love gym shoes and urban fashion as well as dress clothes.

If you want to see how an unsophisticated investor does it, put on some work clothes and stop by my new project. 

You can even prohibit drying of clothes outside, commercial signs, etc. based on what other landlords have seen in the past.

With MF there are numerous ways to increase value by driving up NOI; renovating interiors for increase rents, adding additional facilities that make money (i.e. clothes care center), increasing operating efficiency and thus lowering expenses, implementing a RUBS to decrease utilities expenses, just to name a few.

If the tenants has tenant insurance and the injury isn't a major one (like maybe 10k will make the problem go away), then the tenant insurance will deal with it.For the most part, though, what it protects you from is tenants who want to sue you because their clothes stored in the basement got moldy

-- If the worst case happened and it just didn't rent, would floating the expenses for this property change your quality of life in any way (For example, would paying your mortgage, buying food/clothes, etc be affected)?

Lets say the house catches fire they are going to fix it and as a bonus you usually get lost rent if it is included in the policy but they don't have to pay the tens of thousands to replace your belongings that were burnt or smoke damaged like clothes, electronics, or personal items.