Another alternative idea is to turn your condo into a home business for a couple of years and run a day care center out of it.

To answer your question - lets say it's a retail shopping center, and I have up to 600,000 cash on hand for downpayment + closing costs, and another 300k or so in reserves?

Now, in that evaluation, put that second home directly behind a small commercial strip center with a 6' privacy fence.

On August 21, 2013 I closed on the purchase of an existing note secured by a small retail center located in Montgomery County, Texas.  

Nothing to the apparent concentration in Arcadia, but especially near university centers we see lots of all cash buyers.  

Kelso is 40 minutes north of Vancouver, and is on a major interstate (I-5) but doesn't have a lot of economic draw to it (that I know of), so I wonder if people who work in Vancouver would be interested in living in Kelso or if I should really make a point to buy within a 20 minute commute to growing city centers?

American's are not bathtub people, the bathtub as the center piece of the master bathroom peaked in the late 70's - early 80's and home builders still haven't figured this out yet.

Clean Energy Technology Center.

But in my experience in 2012, there were many people with call center jobs, diversifying the job base.

I own an event center at 126 NE Alberta St.