The auction is coming up and I’d like to hear about your experience with LA auctions vs other counties. 

Once I sold the collateral at auction to take it over he continued to threaten and intimidate the tenants to pay him rent.

I say go to some foreclosure auctions.

Gone are the days when a property was offered up for  no more than the amount of taxes owed, now days it has become a bidding process and as in any auction enviroment people tend to get emotional about their bidding and become quite impractical, and irrational buyers

Her mother has dementia and her house was recently sold at an auction due to 2 years back payment for taxes.

Check your local foreclosure auctions, there is usually not much competition and you can pick them up for reasonable prices.

Question- is an auction a good source of deals?

In the beginning stay away from complexity-auctions, land contracts, FSBO etc.

Looking at Xome, it states that there's an auction ending in 4 hours. 

This is an auction purchase that I already have my earnest money into and also this is my very first deal.