As noted above, up to 50% of gross rental income normally gets eaten up by expenses (taxes, management fees, utilities, landscaping, repairs, capex, etc).

This property is gonna cash flow over $1000 a month after we're all said and done with utilities mortgage and more.

If the didn't do that then they have converted to LTR or MTR rentals at a steady monthly income and have the tenants take over the utilities which offsets the loss of more income.

Did you have taxable income that could’ve been reduced utilizing tax strategies?

Utilities paid by me or lawn mowing and snow, realtor commission for renting, legal expenses etc.  

Does that include utility service to the house, a driveway, septic and well? 

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!

Cost segregation utilizes the MACRS approach.

Now purchasing a home with cash is always good b/c obviously cash is king but also I think the part you might've missed is that, the money your utilizing on these home's won't actually be yours, but the banks or whatever institution you used to fix the home or make its value worth more.

And via the clustering we are utilizing green-space in a communal manner thus reducing foot-print of that BUT retaining such perception as each unit has walkout to what seems a BIG green space.