Or, would you all attribute that more to a general influx of people to the Houston area along with the mortgage rate being advantageous for those with saved capital?

I think it has the right attributes and entry point for me as a new OOS investor and hey, why not (rhetorical, but comments welcome)?

They can help you understand exactly where the boundaries of the property are and verify that there's enough room to build what you have in mind.There can be other issues to watch out for too (wetlands, flood zones, perc test, access to utilities, the physical attributes of the land, etc), as I explain in the blog post mentioned above.

However, there are an abundance of older homes with lots of character just waiting for restoration.

I got lucky and found a wholesaler with great character who has connected me to all my team members.

As an active investor (GP) that means developing all the attributes that are consistent with being a good sponsor, to be able to identify, acquire, manage, and exit and asset that provide passive investor like yourself the desired returns.  

I definitely don't want to become one the characters in that movie, so thanks again!

You need to exchange those attributes for education.

I started this project hoping i could efficiently review the most amount of properties in order to maximize the potential investment options to bid at auction....this is what I have so far.First thing i did was to create the listings, I matched the properties been auctioned with their corresponding pics and the property specs (rooms, size, floors etc.).Second, for each property I automated the data collection process from public records and created a report with: Foreclosure info, owner info, taxes data, liens including mortgages , satisfaction of mortgages,  assigments, violations and permits and court dockets.This data is updated daily to capture new filings (specially the dockets to capture bk and motions to cancel sales)Now that i have the data i can apply my personal "preferences" to go through the report and in a few minutes discard  properties that have certain attributes I "dislike". 

. $150k income warrants paying a good accountant to analyze its tax attributes.