If you just do wholesaling, you would be very limited to a very specific type of deal; that is the distressed seller who is willing to sell for cash in 48 hours at 75% of retail. 

I also became a licensed realtor and now assist investors and retail customers in finding their perfect properties. 

An example of this might be a single unit retail location with a national tenant who agrees to a 10 year NNN lease. 

Thanks to super weak governance during the BLM riots Antifa and homeless.. allowing open air drug use ( legal drugs) and the killer theft under 900.00 is not enforced causing rampant thievery and many stores to close kind of like We see in the mid west and rust belt when neighborhoods change and retail exits as its not sustainable.

I hear agents talking about it who don’t work with investors and have more retail-type buyers and sellers asking about it, so it seems to be becoming more mainstream. 

That would be the alternative but it's generally not offered to retail buyers in the projects you'd like to buy in so you'd need to have the right connections or that.

I am pretty sure in 10 years you will be happy you purchased even if you purchase at retail without a value add. 

You keep the stores as retail space or did you convert to apartments?

I could get more on the retail market if I held on to it until summer, when the lake market in our area really takes off.  

At the end of the day, your biggest asset in getting into real estate is a stable W2 job.That being said, it probably isn't what you mean, but my first job out of college was for a retail real estate owner operator.