I will say, generally speaking, rentals are the strongest right now. 1) lending for home purchase has tightened greatly, greater difficulty qualifying to purchase a home = more renters.2) market average pricing is at a near dead = price with rental rates. meaning far easier to cash flow WITH financing3) many markets are seeing the smallest vacency rate in decades.

There really aren't that many by the city and like I said, the ones that are here are mostly dead or inactive. 

Hi,My feeling is Retail is not dead, going through transition.As you said Big Box retail going down....

I would rather make money from my money than bury it in a hole in the back yard, which is basically what you are doing when leaving it lying dead in a property.  

What strategies do you use to combat the 3 month dead period from the end of one school year to the next? 

All he sees is guaranteed future appreciation and there is no way he will ever change that opinion.Your beating a dead horse trying to change his thinking.

They tell the contacts that they get from this that they are the owner, give name of dead guy, and that they were transferred to another state for work for a 5 year assignment. 

When you make statements like "I don't know" coupled with "I am worried", that is a dead giveaway that you need to go get information.

This home also steadily increase in rents, which can be reinvested, I shouldn't have to mention the effects of not counting in 30 years worth of cashflow into other investments will have as opposed to sitting dead the way it did in your math. 

Backlinks is DEAD!