What began as a quest for a larger yet affordable shop space for a small-town repair business turned into a thirty-year adventure in the ups and downs of real estate ownership with detours into such unexpected crises as adverse possession, lawsuits, evictions, city ordinance violations, easements, and endless tenant drama. The author of this blow-by-blow account offers helpful hints based on hard-earned lessons about ownership of commercial property in a rapidly growing part of the country, Northwest Arkansas. Perhaps even more helpful to anyone interested in dabbling in this particular type of investment opportunity is the entertaining narrative tracking one person’s struggle to learn, adapt, and survive in the onslaught on unexpected legal, construction, and tenant challenges while raising three children and surviving a failed marriage. Will the story end in despair and bankruptcy? Or will the investment pay off with retirement income sufficient to keep body and soul together into the twilight years? Author of “how-to” books and over a dozen studies of local history, Campbell’s incisive observations about her adventures in the local real estate market offers a treasure-trove of advice to anyone contemplating investing in commercial real estate. This richly-told story is a profile of how to get in cheap and make it work for anyone looking to provide a decent return on almost zero dollars and a lot of sweat equity.
