My day job is in oil and gas and I don't see the oil recovery having nearly the impact it had the past few years on  property appreciation.  

Keep in mind LA has been behind the rest of Cali cities in full recovery.  

We also found we were depleting our savings putting 20% down per SF house, and the market recovery meant that savings from our jobs and rental property cash flow was taking longer than we liked to accumulate to the point we could move on the next, more expensive, SF house.

Also, I hope you make a swift recovery and your marketing plan becomes successful. 

Atlanta is also not known to be a high appreciation area, although it did experience quite a bit during the economy recovery over the last couple years but if you were going to speculate I wouldn't do it anywhere other than somewhere know for it, like CA.Your call of course, but I would say the risk of expanding your location preferences and lowering your cap rate requirement is 1,000x less risky than hoping for appreciation.

Has she tried to speak to the original bank about a payment recovery plan?

Once the recession does hit, the cash will be used to buy more properties at favorable pricing and then hold for the recovery.

Does anyone have experience acquiring property through the Allegheny County vacant property recovery program?

I am usually close to budget but this one is way over (tens of thousands, probably $40k over) and is not a flip and not being refinanced (due to where rates are versus my ~3% current rate) so the recovery has to be slow over the hold.  

Clermont (just West of Orlando) is building a $2 billion athletic health and wellness community  (Olympus) with over 4,000 homes and retail to match.