Mystery needs answer
If a home owner has equity, why wouldn't they just sell their house instead of going all the way through foreclosure?
I think it all goes to mental state. What a lot of people do when they can't pay their bills is to ignore them. The bills stack up and they go into a state of denial. Instead of making rational decisions, they wait things out hoping life will improve. The problem is that it will not improve if they're ignoring their misfortunes. Although a solution exists (selling), they keep waiting until there is a Notice of sale posted on their door.
But when you meet with them, do you tell them the best thing to do is they should sell their house? If they do that, you won't get the deal though.
Well yes you want to convince them to sell the house... to you. You can do this by solving their immediate problem that they could not solve for themselves. No judgments here... it's a simple matter of helping people out.