My advice is to know your market - KNOW THE LOCAL REGULATIONS, know what kind of demand there is, a realistic sense of occupancy and revenue, and a realistic sense of your expenses.  

All that being said, if you are talking about a lake (market) that already has established vacation rental history then there should be no reason you can't find a 'vacation home for free' in there with the right purchase. 

I'm in the process of establishing an LLC but waiting for the final paperwork. 

Is this a California regulation or  Texas?

You can't screen out someone because they're gay or they're married or have kids or whatever but there's lots of criteria you can establish.

Their job is simply to disburse funds, transfer and record deeds according to the instructions of the contract.Also worh nothing that Title companies are regulated by the Department of Insurance, not The Division of Real Estate like Licensed (and unlicensed) Brokers.

I'm trying to establish the level of discount people are seeing in the last year when they buy at auction in this area where I will be moving in the near future.

And CA is a funky critter when it comes to taxation and regulation. 

Alternatively you could invest in crowd-sourced real estate investment like Fundrise or RealtyMogul, but those may have investment restrictions due to SEC regulations (ex: I think with Fundrise you can't invest more than 10% of your annual income if you're not an accredited investor). 

If you know the market intimately and are confident in the true market value of the specific properties themselves this may not affect you per se, but if there’s any question on pricing, it would benefit you to work with a local expert to establish fair market value with a CMA and also getting an appraisal done (if you’re working with a lender they will require this anyway).