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. 

-> Besides doing your market research, i strongly advise that before any purchase or offer, that you hire professionals to help you in the process.

@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.

Hiring girls from hooters to be their "fakerouge". 

The idea aspiring investors get mesmerized with is basically to start in real estate and somehow build a portfolio out of thin air.

Then you specialize or hire legal, operations, finance, investor relationships, concept, deal analysis, Which investment level your at determines what experience you need.  

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. 

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.

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