I have been closely researching and monitoring this for many years and the problem gets noticeably worse, as time goes on.

Notice for Creditors is the way to go, I made a spreadsheet of over 400 executors wtih name and address, the estate of____, and date of decree (thought this would be good for monitoring conversion).  

Statistically, out-of-area investors have fared poorly, due to not being able to monitor this property (as well as often overpaying), thus this policy by local banks these days (major change from the heady 2004-2006 period).Oddly enough, you'll do better here with a conventional (Fannie/Freddie) loan.

Having been monitoring the mrket for 2 months 24/7 and haven't seen any deals like what others are talking about!

You could always get back into it that way when on a computer and then mark the thread "monitor topic" checkbox to add it to the watched tab.

If there are no recent sales in an area (but lots of listings/actives), I would hesitate to purchase in that area with the intent to flip...the likelihood is that there just aren't a lot of buyers in that area.I have a few areas like that where I invest...I monitor the activity, but until/unless it changes, I won't be buying in those areas.

We are in the process of improving that to both photoelectric and ionic smoke detectors in all properties and a CO monitor in any properties with gas wall heaters.

But they will still monitor the portfolio... ?

Suggest you monitor tenant retention and see how many move-ins you get per year. 

Also, her house is 6 hours from where we live, so we don't have a good way to monitor it.So now we have thought about having her "sell" the house to us for a low price ($10 or something) so that we own it and can proceed with eviction.