The pre-foreclosure timeline
- Missed payments — 30/60/90 days late. Nothing is public yet.
- Notice of Default (NOD) or Lis Pendens (LP) — the first public filing. This is the window.
- Notice of Trustee/Sheriff Sale — auction date set, typically 21–120 days out depending on the state.
- Auction — too late for a normal wholesale.
- REO — the bank owns it; now it's an MLS deal.
You want stage 2, occasionally stage 3. You never want stage 4.
Where the filings live
- County recorder / register of deeds — NODs in non-judicial states (CA, TX, GA, AZ, NV, MI…).
- County clerk of court docket — lis pendens in judicial states (FL, NY, IL, OH, NJ, PA…).
- Sheriff's office sale calendar — scheduled sales, postponements and cancellations.
- Legal newspaper of record — statutory publication of sale notices.
Most counties publish all of this online for free. The work is in normalizing dozens of different portals into one clean, deduplicated list — which is the part Offr AI automates nationwide.
Verifying the lead before you spend a dime
Run this checklist on every pre-foreclosure:
- [ ] Filing exists and is recent (fresher than 12 months).
- [ ] No active auction date in the sheriff/trustee calendar. If there is a scheduled sale within days, treat it as a subject-to or short-sale conversation, not a standard assignment.
- [ ] Legal owner from the assessor record matches the defendant/borrower name.
- [ ] No later recorded satisfaction, reinstatement, or dismissal.
- [ ] Property is not already bank-owned (grantee = a lender name on the last deed).
Offr AI shows the county evidence for each of these checks next to the property, so you can see *why* a lead is considered a live pre-foreclosure.
How to talk to a homeowner in default
Do not open with "I saw you're in foreclosure." Open with the property.
"Hi — is this the owner of 412 Maple? My name's ___, I buy houses in the neighborhood. I know this may be out of the blue: is there any situation where you'd consider selling?"
Then listen. Many of these owners have equity and options: reinstatement, sale before auction with cash in their pocket, a short sale, or a cash-for-keys exit. Being the person who explains the options honestly is how you win the ones with real spread.
Compliance basics
Many states regulate "foreclosure consultants" and equity purchases from homeowners in default: written contracts, mandatory disclosure language, and rescission periods. Never imply you are a government agency, a lender, or a loss-mitigation service. Confirm your state's foreclosure-rescue statute before you scale outreach.