Purchase prior to Auction

[Chris Tiller]

I was driving some neighborhoods and found a great vacant property. I had my realtor pull some information from the MLS only to find the listing had expired. It is believed, by me, that this was a short sale situation. The only paperwork on the door was for an asset management firm. I think this property may be in pre-foreclosure and will be heading to auction. How would I go about attempting to purchase this property prior to an auction? Would calling the property management firm provide me any ideas as to who the owner is? Should I stick to just running a title search?