Pre-foreclosure leads
The lender has begun. Highest urgency of anything we hold, smallest volume, and genuinely worth working in only some states — which we will say plainly rather than sell you a list that has gone stale.
The state you are in decides whether this list is any good
In a non-judicial foreclosure state, the lender records a notice and the sale follows in a matter of weeks. The record is fresh, the deadline is real and dated, and the owner knows exactly how long he or she has. Texas is the sharpest case: a trustee sale happens on the first Tuesday of the month with roughly three weeks’ notice.
In a judicial state, foreclosure runs through the courts on a filing that can sit for one to three years. By the time you reach the owner, the case has often been resolved, refinanced, dismissed, or has simply gone quiet. The record still looks like a live lead and mostly is not.
We take that seriously enough that it changes what we pull. It is also why this is our smallest category by a wide margin — we would rather hold less of it than sell volume that does not convert.
What the conversation is really about
Not price, at first. An owner in foreclosure has usually spent months being contacted by people who want something, and a good share of those contacts were predatory. The first job is being a person who is straightforward about what you do and does not pretend to be a rescue service.
The second is timing, because the deadline is the deal. Whether you can actually close inside the window is the question that decides everything, and being honest when you cannot is worth more than the lead.
A word about who else is calling
Foreclosure filings are public and every investor in the market pulls them the same week. Expect the owner to have heard from several people already. That is another reason a lead where the seller has already replied to a message is worth more here than a fresh row on the same public list everyone else bought.
Where we hold pre-foreclosure leads leads
Counted from our own inventory on September 10, 2026. States are listed by how many of this list type we have actually worked, not by population.
Questions people ask
How long does the owner have before the house is sold?
It depends entirely on the state. In non-judicial states the notice-to-sale window is commonly measured in weeks — Texas runs about 21 days to a first-Tuesday trustee sale. In judicial states the same case can take one to three years to move through the courts. Confirm the local timeline before you promise a seller anything.
Why do you have fewer pre-foreclosure leads than other types?
Because we deliberately do not work them in judicial-foreclosure states, where the filings go stale in the courts. That takes a lot of the country off the table for this list. We would rather be short on this category than sell a list that looks live and is not.
Can you still buy a house that is in foreclosure?
Yes, up until the sale happens, and the payoff comes out of closing like any other lien. What kills these deals is running out of runway, so the timeline is the first thing to establish, not the price.
Is a pre-foreclosure owner going to be hostile?
Some are, and it is usually not about you — most have been called repeatedly, sometimes by people making promises they could not keep. Saying plainly who you are and what you do in the first sentence gets further than a script.
Other lead types
Every lead on Freedom Leads is a seller who already replied to a text. $5 each, sold once, to one buyer.