The reason I think new construction can provide that opportunity is that you can eliminate inefficiencies.My experience is that students don't care about dining rooms, garages, super high end bathrooms.I certainly could be wrong but building to your customer seems easier than remodeling to your customer.  

Don’t get me wrong, I MUcH prefer SFR.

The best question to ask yourself is if you have the time/personality and contacts to handle it if things go wrong. 

I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

Don’t get me wrong SF is a great place to live but tough for landlords.

This property was my first, I feel like everything went wrong there: 4 flooding, bad tenants, overbudget renos but somehow still came out ahead in an economic recession (given enough time, real estate is very forgiving) so this property taught me a lot about what NOT to do.

As long as you have a good team in place it is hard to go wrong @Jesse Dadon

You should find out what is wrong with that A/C and talk to an HVAC guy you truth about the longevity of the unit or your portion of the unit.

Yes, there are commissions involved and make sure you don't pay anything like an application fee up front, but it's not wrong to pay people for their service (one of their services is getting your loan to the finish line). 

My plan had us both on Title, just tenants-in-kind(may be using wrong term here) so we aren't partners needing to file taxes together.