Our property was right on the highway, so we'd pull out lawn chairs and watch hundreds and hundreds of bikes drive past our property.

In understand for yourself as an arm-chair quarterback forecasting seems on level with asking the magic 8-ball, but for FT Senior industry/market experts who literally make our living knowing what general public does not, as it is our career to advise persons, yeah we darn well better have some excellent insight into where things are going and why, by what data, for what reasons, how can it be measured, weighed and tested true in a scientific manner vs, "well, I think ___ because, well, thats what I think". 

What happens if a previous owner's mother lived in the building and special accommodations were made for her ( a chair life perhaps) that became unnecessary when I bought the building and I chose to no longer maintain and a long term tenant now needs such a device?

There is some overbuilding now and it's like a game of musical chairs in that some developers will lose if they did not plan correctly for a long horizon to wait to the next cycle.

So just that one chair covers her electric (at least most of it).

We have a commercial complex with 7 office spaces to rent out and we were asked about costs for furnishing one of the offices with a desk and chairs. 

Such roles included being on committee chairs or being a grade level team leader.

Five hours in comfy chairs, watching tv, reading the free newspaper, eating free food, and drinking free beers vs . . . sitting in an airport bar?  

Once you add-in the cost of utilities (especially heat), furnishings (couches, tables and chairs, beds, sheets, towels, table cloths, pots and pans and plates and silverware, napkins, toilet paper, TV's and radios, washer and dryer and refrigerator - yes, it's common for a long-term SFR not to include a washer, dryer, or refrigerator - etc, etc, etc), plowing/lawn/trash (or HOA fees), cleaning, extra repairs and maintenance (I promise that a long-term house renter takes better care and causes less wear and tear than a revolving door of vacation renters), turnover management and screening, etc, etc, you are not making any more with the vacation rental than with the long-term SFR where the tenants pay all the utilities (possibly with the exception of water/sewer), and take care of the lawn and snow, and provide their own furnishings soup to nuts.

I became severely disabled back in 2004 and since then have general contracted 2 homes and a dozen bathroom remodels all geared toward wheel chair access.