HOA foreclosed on the apartment building and wiped out senior position lien and junior liens. 

But at this point, I am limited to a defined budget.I went to ListSource.com and generated a list for my area of homes with 40% or more equity, 3+ bedrooms, 2+ bathrooms, no junior liens, property value $75,000-$200,000, single-family home, and an age of 65 or older (not set on old folks but looking for filters).

Our nearby school actually no longer allows Juniors and up in on-campus housing due to overcrowding, so at least where we are there's not much fear of that.  

I am currently a junior Finance major at Penn State.

(Btw, I ended up going through with it junior year, and it was probably one of my happiest semesters!)

You can be duped into buying a junior lien.

I would need to know the seller and the property to give a good suggestion but in one case one of my agents bought no money down, just a monthly payment to cover the down payment, plus there was existing financing to take subject to and the seller doing a wrap to cover the difference, and to make the agent happy we let him take the entire commission provided he took it as a junior lien payable monthly.

Do they understand the risks of being in second/junior position? 

This makes it where all first, second mortgage and other juniors have to agree to the deal or you do not tie up EM.If everyone doesn't agree then as a buyer you do not have anything.

An auction can be held for anything whereas a foreclosure generally wipes out everything except the first mortgage (AS LONG AS) you are not bidding on a junior lien that is foreclosing.What you need to do is look at the local foreclosure attorneys for the county you want to buy in.