My wife's dearest friend's house, six doors up the street, flooded for the third time in 6 years during Harvey and they sold it to a CA investor for about $60K.

Lots of activity on those auctions though and typically get bid up higher then my MAO.I know how to find the owner and contact them directly but what is the process to buying directly from them prior to the auction date?

Latitude Property Management (http://chooselatitude.com/) has excellent reviews and is run by @Neal Collins who is active here on BP. 

Looking at recent activity, there are a lot of properties for sale, almost none for rent, and a lot sales happened in 2017.

jordan, you beat me at my first year.i sold my first only rental a single wide trailer on own land feb 2017 which only paid loan earned $ 7k, profit on depreciating asset, all while living down street in foreclosure i bought earlier, zero down, since it had 2 "homes" on 15 acres  i had it surveyed with new deed and subdivided  the 3 acre back lot camp barns, then went credit union put debt consolidation note on camp since owned outright, no appraisal or inspection needed,  cleared ratios to refinance the bigger nicer one home, used that money cash out to help me buy a 3 unit, financed fix up money, then moved into 3 unit, rented primary home, rented 2 other units, then with 3 rental units income qualified just bought 3 b1 b house to rinse and repeat now in process to refinance my fixed up 3 unit. now i just incorporated after joining bp, thats all in last 15 months. now if i can get enough cash out refi on my 3 unit im praying for good appraisals to buy reo down street to rinse rehab and repeat and im still not sure im doing it right. im still using banks or credit unions. love find investor to simplify process and reduce paperwork.i tried listing my camp on air bnb but no one wants rent off grid river front home. lol.now got hire crew and management. 

It does add to costs but I have discovered properties that look a mess - and the property manager is shocked when I say I was at the house at 123 Main Street today, and saw that X, Y and Z are totally unacceptable - correct this immediately.

The primary requirement is at least one of the owners is required to be an active pilot.The the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_compliance/re...) resulted in the laws being setup for these types of communities called "Through the fence". 

There's a huge hospital across the street amongst many other stores.

Franklin Street (corner of E.

I would need a street to narrow it down and give you a better answer.