Short sales can and do often drag on for months and may never close.

As everyone knows these can drag on for months before closing.

The job will drag on and you will need to be calling all the time trying to figure out when they will show up, what they have gotten done, etc.  

You might also suggest that the daughters make sure the water is shut off inside the home and that the pipes are drained, and the toilets, etc. are "winterized" in case things drag on into the cold weather.My $0.02...David J Dachtera

I shall name my town "Dragon".

Evictions can drag on for months and months.That being said, all of these things only hurt you when you get a bad tenant. 

or could it drag on for months before they post REO? 

And sometimes the long hold time can result in appreciation that overcomes bad execution...something that is less likely with flips (but is a driving force behind the many posts you see that say "we meant to flip it but it didn't sell so we decided to rent it out"...whoops).One way to balance the risks in flipping is to do it in a fund structure, which gives diversification amongst several deals at a time so that one blown deal is a drag on the overall vehicle but doesn't wipe out an investment.  

If notyour  " rentability " may be a drag on your  estimated numbers. 

These will all be very normal," he told a conference in Beijing.As well as cutting interest rates on Friday, the PBOC lowered the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves.Both moves were bids to jumpstart growth in China's slowing economy, a drag on global growth that has been of major concern in emerging markets and other leading economies.Monetary policy easing in the world's second-largest economy is at its most aggressive since the 2008/09 financial crisis, as growth looks set to slip to a 25-year-low this year of under 7 percent.Yi said China in the future would lower the reserve requirement ratio for banks, the amount of cash that major lenders need to keep on hand - at a "normal" pace."