I am new, still looking for my first property. It appears to me that the deals are in the dropped bids before auction. How does one find out what opening bids will be lowered and how soon before the auction does this typically occur? Trying to find hot how I can do my research on a property that gets a lower bid. I haven’t been able to catch one yet.
There is no magic answer. Although some trustee companies/banks have started publishing their opening bids earlier (2-3 days before auction), a lot of trustees do not reveal the opening bid until the morning of the auction and in worst cases, while you are at the auction.
There is no way you are going to have a way to know which properties will get a low opening bid (which is called a ‘specified’ bid vs. full loan amount bid). That is why it is a full-time job doing foreclosure auctions. You have to work every single property you are interested in, calculate what you feel is your best bid based on all your due diligence and sit there every day at the auction until one of your properties gets announced at a decent opening bid.
On the other hand, there are some trustees who publish opening bids early (Reconstrust is an example) and at least you can eliminate those properties if the opening bid too high.
GJ is right in that it’s very important to do your prep work and hence it’s very helpful to use Foreclosure Radar’s many tracking tools and resources (e.g. opening bid e-mail alerts, etc.). Sign up for one of the many webinars that the FR team (Michelle et. al.) sponsors. They will show you how to best make use of FR and how to do your prep work. I know that many FR power-users (including yours truly) prefer when lenders keep the lid on (don’t post bids until the last minute), as they will have an advantage over steps competitors who have not done any preliminary research. Regardless, it can sometimes be a mad scramble + adrenalin rush when a compelling (low) bid gets posted at the last minute … early to bed and early to rise … 
Thanks for the advise, I will try to stay on top of it. So much to learn!