It's really not your place to know guidelines and the specific overlays that each company has (overlays are guidelines on top of guidelines that are company specific and they're designed to minimize that specific company's perceived or actual risk), but forging relationships with lenders is one of the keys to success with every investor I've spoken to. 

I think your university background can somewhat help to show your "experience" in Real Estate, so that could be perceived by Passive Investors as a plus. 

Rather, I was doing them for other reasons (pride, ego, duty, perceived expectations).

However, I think the cap rates are low because of the perceived lower risk.

Sponsors should get paid AFTER they deliver sufficient risk-adjusted value to LPs net of perceived risk; not before. 

It's different for all of us and, accordingly (at least in my view) not worthy of debate in a forum that exists for the purpose of sharing knowledge and experience rather than passing judgement on perceived motivations.This is the primary reason why I chose the tagline "I would rather be judged by the quality of my contributions rather than perceptions of my motivations" in my profile.

A situation where your willingness to provide capital to a business earns you a job with that company would also be considered an indirect benefit, but if you have been working for the employer for some time that is not going to be an issue.The bottom lines is that if there is no real or perceived linkage between your retirement plan leasing to your employer and your work status with that employer, this could be OK.We have many cases where someone who is a rank-and-file employee of a company will have an opportunity to buy a small stake in the company, lend to the company, or lease property to the company using retirement funds.  

Perceived cash flow and how hard will you have to work for it??

Sometimes they have a real or perceived flaw that just scares folks away.

The better the site and more tenants want it generally the LESS leverage Starbucks has to make demands.It can be true on a retail center that if you land a junior anchor tenant like Starbucks and change the mix percentage of the center from all mom and pop to some national credit the cap rate can compress some and sale price can go up because of more perceived security of the cash flow long term and generally better loan term and rates.