High price, normally not great condition, and rents so so low compared to purchase price....like $1000-$1200/side on $400,000+ purchase price. 

Is it normal to spend months doing a project like this. 

Definitely leverage your money (ie. finance your properties) and put down as little as you can to stretch your funds as far as you can.  3 cash flowing properties could earn you close to $1,500 a month (net after all normal expenses and a repair reserve).  

What is a normal goal for C o C Roi?

You can find a deal with 10-15 mins a day of work... get up a little earlier than normal, have some coffee, check Zillow/Realtor/whatever you use for MLS searches and keep a spreadsheet with home data on it to monitor trends until you find something you want to make an offer on.

Like many of you, I do not see this being part of the normal process of landlords trying to protect their property and interests.. 

The agent will normally update the MLS with the sales info as it's a requirement for being a member of HAR and having MLS access.   

Just listen to the sales pitches by the hundreds of different companies that sell health insurance and every company had so many options for health plans the average person cannot remember more than 10% of what a health insurance salesman tells them and I will bet money on that because I know for a fact that when sitting with health insurance salesman no normal person can remember and compare all the different plans without looking at the charts, brochures, schedules, different co-pay plans and then compare the benefits and cost for PPO vs, HMO and my list can go on forever.

It only takes most counties a few days to record the deed and normally costs $500 or less.Cheers!

Normally the Home Owners Association would have this information but the subject neighborhood does not have a HOA.