It's very common for me to have a lease start mid-month or a the last week in the month.  

Things I wish I had done differently:1.Lack of exit strategy during design of common areas.

Is it common/discussed on BP frequently?

I.e. common lights

How common are special assessments in townhouses vs condos?

Unfortunately, as is common with specific CPA questions, you are not going to get an easy answer.

Depending upon where you are in PA, zoning and land use may not be a problem, but apparently there are lots of hoa's that sue and or get sued as a result of common issues, so insurance can be crazy expensive  or prohibitive.  

Now that I officially know about the mold, I may have to pay about $20K (2 estimates so far) to clean it up, taking it back to the studs in some places, pulling back the baseboards in others, then cleaning with sporicide and doing air scrubbing in order to get an official clean bill of health since i can't rent or sell without that, having officially established that I have mold.

Agreed and from what I have seen so far, you can get a good read on the health of the town based on level of downtown revitalization efforts.

I would think in at least some of the markets your area that is a fairly common way of finding tenants.