Comment by lurk2

I’ve worked with both. Retailers are not generally sophisticated investors; they don’t necessarily lose money, but if they don’t own the real estate, they are usually making less than they could have working a job and investing their earnings in an index fund. There is a similar trend with most small businesses outside of the knowledge sector. Real estate investors who buy, hold, or develop property professionally are almost always far more sophisticated, which is to say that they are more knowledgeable of the tradeoffs involved in their investments and can thus take calculated risks in order to achieve a particular outcome.

People make suboptimal investments all the time. This can be the result of lifestylism (“I want to be a retailer!”), naiveté (“I’ll figure out the financials later.”), or path dependence (“I’ll become a retailer because it’s the only thing I know about.”).