If you visited that courthouse and went to the property tax assessor's or collector's office, they could describe in detail exactly how you can go about bidding on tax certificates. 

I bought during the boom and I bought even more during the bust.  

You'll likely soon find out it's much harder than you think with Texas real estate booming.  

The town still seems on slow decline but home prices come up a little may be form the overall market boom anyway but sill some deals seems very tempting.

Here's the rate sheet associated with a lender that can reliably deliver on the time-frame specified in the contract, here are fannie mae's loan level pricing adjustments, here's your fico score,  here's your down payment, here's how you price out your own mortgage, so boom here's your rate at no points with a slight lender credit, and we're done.

It seems very boom or bust in my opinion.  

The guy who bought this piece bought the bare land for 510k (in 04 so I think it was in the housing boom) then added 3 wells, electricity, the used manufactured home and the septic.

It's scheduled to improve but not anytime soon You do better going for 3rd ward area is booming historic district in reconstruction money all over 😀

So this was the top of the housing boom at the time.

Consensus seems to be we aren't at the end of the boom quite yet.