Banks must approve a short sale for a short sale to take place, and banks hire appraisers and other real estate agents to perform broker price opinions (BPOs), or estimated values of the home.The goal would be to negotiate with the seller before the home becomes a short sale. 

We never hired a manager because it simply would have taken too much out of our profits.

@Sean Gallagher not a sales pitch, but this is what we provide for investors in Metro Detroit:)Understand that if you hire the latest & greatest PMC, many grow using poorly trained VA's. - Your portfolio will suffer:(You want a PMC that has great systems in place, including a great portal where you can keep tabs on eveything.You will also need to manage your PMC on a regular basis.

I recently hired them to clean up my credit with the intention to take a serious look into the MAP program.

I intend to continue to scale a bit in this area, but eventually I'd like to either sell or hire someone to manage everything.

If you just hire the cheapest or first PMC you speak with and it turns into a bad experience, please don’t assume ALL PMC’s are bad and start trashing PMC’s in general.

With that being said, in a worst case scenario, you can always hire a property management company to handle the day to day items if it comes to that. 

Implement documented repeatable processes to reduce errors and improve service levels.By being efficient, and cutting some of your costs you can hire better talent with the leftover cash. 

If that's not an option, hire an attorney and evict her. 

Consider hiring a Property Manager to manage out of state properties.