If you have zero reserves, i'd be willing to bet you are either not collecting or you guys had some serious repairs come up in the past couple of years.

Sounds like being an owner occupant may be my best bet for my first purchase.

Your best bet is to find others with his disability or similar ones and get him into some sort of group home and he will have some money from SSI to buy him clothes and a little bit of spending money.

I bet lawn/Snow is closer to $2500

It seems like a safe bet to me that inflation will stay where it is or increase in the medium term or long run.  

We later refinanced them in one of our names, you might have to wait a couple years to do so but unless you would hit your 10 property max before then it might be your best bet.

. - I bet some folks will chime in.Mike

What if one tenant or the other is not physically or mentally capable to do the task?

This may not be the answer that you want to hear, but I would suggest partnering with an experienced investor and potentially having him/her provide some of the financing.That's the best bet in my mind, you can take the learning experience as your profit on the deal.

If you decide to stick with SB, just know how to run numbers and unfortunately flipping is probably your best bet (unfortunate in the since that it's high capital required to do it in SoCal).