I do see lots of self storage and warehouses going up, so my default assumption would be that the old shopping malls do NOT trade for less than build cost, but it's possible that the marketplace is not perfectly efficient. 

It sounds like you're really ready to dedicate time and energy into educating yourself about possible investments and I love that.

Start by leveraging your skills to identify undervalued properties, perform cost-efficient renovations, and build sweat equity.

But it takes time and energy from internally motivated people who take responsiblity.

Focus most of your energy on the actual house, the spread, the team and the execution.

This experience reinforced the need for efficient budgeting and timely execution to ensure profitability.

You can surely buy cheaper properties and obtain the same debt pay-down, but now you've got 5x the head-ache, so right asset class is more about efficiency when it comes to debt pay-down.Tax shielding is similar concept in that more expensive properties directionally give you more building basis to depreciate, which means less net income to tax.

Specifically, I’d love to hear about best practices for managing shared spaces, screening tenants, and setting up house rules.Additionally, I plan to split the utilities among the tenants—any advice on how to handle this efficiently would be greatly appreciated!

May not be your cup of tea but they are cost efficient and they work to add passive income at a fraction of the cost to build a SFH.There are a few "Tiny Home" builders in Tampa and Manatee doing a ton of business.  

Maintaining open communication and setting clear expectations for transparency and efficiency will help strengthen your working relationship with them.Hope this helps!