If you are in your comfort zone, you are likely not progressing.

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.  

Make all your payments on time (even early), keep your lender up to date on your progress and don't jump ship the first time someone offers you cheaper money.

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

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.

How do I progress?

okay, so I'm a 27 year old full time student with sketchy credit( progress of repairing) who has managed to scrape up some change, about 30k or so and me and a childhood friend who has near excellent credit have been talking about buying a house or a duplex if possible to live in and also rent out, is it really hard?

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).