This one may not be good deal, but you can use the opportunity

to have a training run of the process.

You should contact the city code office and the city or county clerk's office for these information. Of course, from what you said, the owner seems to be cooperating. Maybe he is willing to show the inside.

If you want to get into this, I suggest you to go through 5-10 such auctioned house(if not more) before you seriously bid on one.