My property manager said "the tenant is dark but the check cleared" and I have been sitting with that for four days now.

The KC situation is a useful frame here, and your credit-quality instinct is correct as far as it goes, but the NNN version of "dark but paying" carries a specific risk that goes beyond the residential version.

In a NNN deal, a tenant going dark (meaning they stop operating but keep paying rent) is called a "dark tenant" situation. The lease is intact. The checks clear. The problem shows up when you try to sell. A buyer underwriting your dollar store will look at whether that location is actively trading, because the corporate guarantee behind the rent is only as strong as the parent company staying solvent. If the chain is closing stores in markets that "looked fine two years ago," a dark location is a soft signal that this one may be on the closure list. Buyers price that risk in.

On the haircut question: I cannot give you a number because it depends on the tenant's credit rating at the time of sale, the remaining lease term, and whether any co-tenancy or kick-out clauses exist in the lease. A deal with a dark investment-grade tenant and 9 years left trades differently from one where the tenant is sub-investment-grade and actively shrinking its footprint. The honest answer is that the range is wide enough that you need a net-lease broker to pull comps on dark-tenant sales in that chain specifically, not dollar stores generally.

One thing worth asking your attorney before you go further: does this lease have a co-tenancy clause or a kick-out option that lets the tenant reduce rent or exit if certain conditions are met? That language is where NNN deals quietly become less bond-like than advertised.

What does the lease say about assignment and subletting if the tenant wants out?

The dark-but-paying haircut I've actually watched happen was 75 basis points on exit, deal in suburban Phoenix, Family Dollar, four years left on term when they went dark mid-lease.

Buyer's broker pulled comps on dark NNN sales and came in at 7.4 instead of 6.6, seller thought credit quality would hold the number, it did not hold the number.

What nobody flagged before that deal closed was that the rent-to-sales ratio had already blown past any reasonable threshold two years before darkness, which is a number the tenant's own filings will tell you if you read them.

Dollar General and Family Dollar have both published store-count rationalization language in earnings calls that is not vague.

The 9-year flat rent with no escalators is the part I'd be asking about before the dark-or-lit question even comes up, because 6.6 on flat rent in year 9 is a different asset than 6.6 with bumps.

What's the population trend in the MSA where this box sits?