They utilized to be places where you might grab a Coke or a quart of milk. But in some property pockets of The United States and Canada, corner shops that have actually sat vacant are turning out to be prime real estate not for owners but for homeowners disappointed by prohibitively costly real estate markets. This story and 2 others– one in Victoria, B.C., and another in the San Francisco Bay Area– share how clever owners applied pluck and perseverance to turn obsolete mom-and-pops into dream homes that, dollar for dollar, beat out anything they could have discovered doomscrolling on Zillow.