Bottomline they sound like they've been good tenants, give them the easiest way out. 

Good luck!

I have done this before and now find the risk just to high.  

We wanted to get in early to get a good deal.

Also, Since my buy box is pretty narrow, even though I’m pretty good at doing the title research myself, I’ll still pull a title report for each one.

Too many really good prices, then the shipping kills it.

Does anyone have a good effective 3rd party mailing company to send mailers direct to seller?

Good luck to you guys! 

My question is this: before the am date of the auction 3 weeks from now, is there any way to find out if the mortgage has been paid and brought back to be in good standing, hence avoiding foreclosure and removed from the auction altogether?

All good reading and listening, education is best and if you want to learn you have to ingest as much information as possible.I read many books that helped me, but my go-to is listeining to at least 2hrs of podcast with real examples per day.One very important things that "want-to-be" fails is to understand that real estate has many different specialities, so you have to focus your time in your real project.