I stumbled across a website that had heat maps and rankings for the cities in terms of most desireable so I was just looking to see if some of those would be confirmed by a local as being correct.

Maybe run numbers to see if it would be a good BRRRR property to refi your capital back out (if you're not familiar with BRRRR search the forums and blogs,it's a great method for redeploying capital without a sale).

She then has the ability to make a tax-free annual gift of $15,000 to you and your sister (and sisters kids) if she so desires, so that you can start using that money now. 

My next question is since all tax sales are final and you assume all judgements and liens,  is there some way to check if a property has a clean title without paying for a full on title search. 

TAX search.  

In a less desirable neighborhood, it is better to rent to applicants who know exactly what they are in for, who have generationally lived in that area. 

I did a google search and found a few companies that offer numbers/reports for money, and also went to the TXDOT website but was thoroughly confused.I also want to be able to see if the traffic has been steadily increasing or decreasing over the past few years. 

I've searched loopnet, redfin, realtor, & zillow for multifamily but nothing that looks promising. 

Is there a way to search the forums by keyword on the new appAlso on my alerts when it shows them it shows the keyword but does not show the title of the post - anyway to show the title to the post ?

Sometimes a 1 mile radius pulls houses from a much more or less desirable area.