Their concept is not new and has been around for ages with people renting rooms in college towns and more expensive markets (NYC, LA) however this is a centralized more hands off management approach to self managing by letting them do all the heavy lifting for you which allows you to scale in less time so yes the concept definitely works and even better with their technology behind it.

Research the appropriate laws for your property and follow best practices to avoid any discrimination accusations: use the same criteria for everyone who applies, know what the protected classes are, which questions are legal to ask and which aren't, and only deny applicants for legal reasons etc.

Update: We ended up backing out of the commercial deal, way too many issues going on and shady practices that we were not comfortable engaging with.Now the question is what to do with the chunk of money left after we pay taxes.

Practice running the numbers.

That is natural lifecycle of any learning, as you move from elementary to high school, to college. 

Quote from @Sebastian Bennett: Areas near college campuses are good places to begin as is Center City and south philly.

Now, I know someone could say the cost should be "negligible" couple of hundred dollars a month, in comparison to the whole buildout budget, but still I do want to know what are the best practices out there.

In practice how Mello Roos works is you create a political subdivision and apply to the county they approve the area for the Bond issue.. you need Bond council and a investment bank to create and sell the bonds. once the Bond issue is approved this allows the developer to get a Bridge loan to build said improvements ( that are usually 5 to 50 million or so) Once improvements are in  and taken over by the county the Bond money is released and is used to pay off the Bridge lender..

If not, even though you are a re pro, losses are passive & deductions are limited.There are 7 scenarios that will qualify as material, and you only need to meet one:*500 hours*Substantially all participation*> 100 hrs and at least 1/2*Significant participation*5/10 years*Personal service activity w participation in last 3 years*Continuous participationTo materially participate, you must be involved in the operations of the activity on a regular, continuous, and substantial basis.Once you pass the pro test, the material participation often comes along for the ride.You can elect to aggregate all rental real estate for purposes of measuring material participation under Sec. 1.469-9(g).Your time spent on all your rental properties (STRs don't qualify) counts as one activity, making it easier to materially participate.In order to make a strong case with your CPA and the IRS you need to document your hours.Best practice is an hours log where you are as specific as possible.

I'm considering SFH or Condo or townhouse to start with targeting local college/schools.