Ok, so I completely misunderstood how this works!
I thought that tapping on someone's building decreased the completion time for the payout on the building (I also thought it worked on character tasks...) like the way Marge the Witch speeds up crop growth.
TzipiTzipora wrote:
and I don't even really see the point of going for the ones that take longer to make cash.
Well, it really depends on how active that particular player is / how many buildings they have.
I'm an active player right now, usually logging in several times a day. My job allows this (I can sometimes even play while I'm working) but don't be jealous: I don't make a lot of money and can be dragged out of bed to solve problems and fix things. However, I only have a handful of buildings so far. If you have 100 friends (I do) that means you need 300 buildings for them to tap on. Which means that if you're being a good neighbor you can't tap your own buildings and collect until a friend has tapped them, which means you're not collecting rent (or whatever) on any of your buildings or rides Which means you're not progressing in the game because you have no money and tickets to buy MORE buildings and rides.
I wouldn't be nearly as far along in the game as I am now (or gotten the Writer's Workshop) if I hadn't set up a Brown House farming area and sat tapping them every 5 minutes while I was reading email, writing code, watching TV, etc (and stopping every few minutes to while I worked at cleaning up the lodge at our campground from the weekend slobs).