Texas Court House Steps Auction

[Al I.]

I attended my second auction in Austin, Texas today. My goal is to buy and hold homes with rentals. In Texas properties get a NOD in the paper 21 days prior to auction. You have various ways to gather the information. A small percentage of auction properties are ever purchased by investors in my area. This means you have to research a significant number if you expect to bid at auction. Every property I was interested in did not make it to auction.
Searching the “Chain of Title†is my primary obstacle at this point. I have looked back a year on the Foreclosure blog and have seen a few good answers but I would like to take another shot at fleshing out this topic. I am interested in knowing about books, software, web sites, services, best practices, etc. as they relate to title research. My goal is to be confident that I am purchasing a First mortgage and that I can pick out property tax and IRS liens. All others in Texas almost always are wiped out by the first lien.
If I could bank on a few properties this would not be an issue. I would use a Title Company.
Thanks in advance for your time and advice.