Since you're combining strategies, with one large goal to take care of your family, I'd worry less about the financial sense of the deal and more about the life sense of the deal.

For purposes of this definition, an individual or entity will be found to have engaged in a pattern of business if the individual or entity by itself or with any combination of other individuals or entities,whether as partners or common owners in another entity, hasengaged in one or more of these practices on 2 or more occasions in any 12-month period."

Tired boomer + landlords that own free and clear are my favorite SF seller as well.Travis- tough to combine proper SF with no capital. 

This means the less cash you spend to buy the property, the less you have at risk.Based on your complete statement above, the reason why you lost everything had more to do with your lack of knowledge on how to analyze properties, and all the mistakes you said you made along the way.After ten years, using a combination of reinvesting the cash flow (part of it) and exploiting the compounding effect, the REI that only paid $20k for the same properties the other REI paid $100k for, could have had 43 properties and $215k/year in cash flow. 

After all, she states it was her son's fault, and in my leases, at least, tenant is responsible for damage caused by tenant, other occupants or their guests. 

Various combinations of the following I have considered.

Situated on an 18,000+ square-foot lot, each unit has 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and washer/dryer hook-ups.

Unless you're looking to start a job as a landlord of your own deals and hope to be financially free by the time you have grandchildren; you'll need a better plan.The vast majority of highly successful real estate investors use a combination of the I and B (or S to a lesser extent) quadrants (read RichDad's Cash Flow Quadrant) to accelerate the passive income and wealth accumulation real estate done well can provide.What source of income do you have now to funnel into real estate?

I utilize a combination of the two.

It doesn't always work but some appraisers sometimes will combine their data with other data to support the result of an appraisal.