Find Preforeclosure leads on your own for free!

[Pablo Avila]

It's been a long while since I've put together a comprehensive helpful post, but here it is!

This post focuses on my experience in the fastest way of using your local county clerk documents to find real-estate leads, specially pre-foreclosures. I mean the fastest because even your commercial data reseller vendors won't be as fast as your local counties, trust me I run a real-estate data company :)

Here's a bit of background:

The county clerk's office is responsible for recording and maintaining public records (related to property and legal matters) It tracks documents like deeds of trust, mortgages, liens, Lis Pendens, probates, and related foreclosures docs, etc. These records help verify ownership, track legal claims related to real estate and legal transactions.

Below is a table I've put together on these Document types (or some counties call them instruments) which get recorded daily. I've also added a simple explanation of what they mean, and estimated time before they go into a foreclosure or auction state. I know some of you who are truly experienced in real-estate go directly to the foreclosure pages on your local county which get published daily; however, these document types below often occur much earlier.

The point of these is to get hold of a property owner and work something out to help them deal with their situation (i.e. creative financing, subject to, etc..).

Document Type	What It Means	Estimated Timeline Before Auction
LIS PENDENS (NOTICE OF)	Lawsuit filed, often foreclosure or quiet title action. Public notice of pending litigation.	60–180+ days before auction
APPOINTMENT OF TRUSTEE/SUBSTITUTE TRUSTEE	Mortgage lender assigns (or replaces) a trustee to handle foreclosure.	30–120 days before auction
MODIFICATION	Borrower is trying to renegotiate loan terms to avoid foreclosure.	Can happen 30–180 days out; often before NOD
REINSTATEMENT	Borrower intends to catch up on payments to stop foreclosure.	Usually 0–60 days before auction
BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS	Filed by borrower to stop foreclosure.	Typically filed within 0–30 days before auction
ABSTRACT OF JUDGMENT	Creditor has secured a judgment lien — may be precursor to lien enforcement.	60–180+ days (depends on collection)

County clerk documents like lis pendens, mortgage loan modifications, and similar filings can reveal signs of financial distress in a property. A lis pendens indicates that a foreclosure lawsuit has been filed, marking the property as legally contested and likely in preforeclosure. Mortgage loan modifications suggest the homeowner is struggling to keep up with payments and is attempting to renegotiate terms to avoid foreclosure. Other filings, such as loan defaults, tax liens, or bankruptcy notices, can further signal financial hardship.

Those are a few examples of some highly relevant docs. They will typically contain information such as the Grantor, Grantee (Current property owner), the document type, and the property's legal description (i.e. "Lot 5, Block 7 of the Meadowbrook Subdivision) - I add this because may of the documents (unless you open the attached documents which are often pdfs or images), won't have the actual full property address (some counties such as Cook county in Illinois will have both the parcel ID# and address which makes it easier to search your local property appraisal district and pull the property information.

Some counties have hundreds of document types which may be a bit overwhelming (You can always ask ChatGTP or similar to tell you which are highly relevant as some states have additional docs or they may call them something slightly different) below are few others that may be relevant , or sometimes they may just give you an acronym - for example in Harris county you may see L/P as Lis Pendens.

• Notice of Default (NOD)
• Notice of Substitute Trustee Sale (NOSTS)
• Appointment of Substitute Trustee (AOST)
• Mechanic’s/Materialmen’s Lien (MML)
• Tax Lien
• HOA/POA Lien
• Abstract of Judgment (AOJ)
• Lis Pendens (LP)
• Deed of Trust (DOT)
• Loan Modification
• Bankruptcy Filing Notice
• Release of Lien (ROL)
• Partial Release
• Assignment of Deed of Trust (ADOT)
• Notice of Acceleration
• Federal Tax LienFTL
• Probate Filing / Affidavit of Heirship
• Eviction Filing
• Quiet Title Action
• Notice of Trustee's Deed

I wanted to give a bit of background as many of you are trigger happy on commercial products by selecting “Preforeclosures” without really knowing what it means (Many of you who are seeking easy money and aren’t running a viable real-estate business ).

I will say the primary challenge you'll have is that there's a lot of manual processing involved here such as

• - Reading manual documents (PDFs or images) - This is how you'll find the true address, or find the deed of trust instrument # so you can reference the deed of trust and find all the property information.
• - Some may only include the legal description - So you'll have to manually cross check with the county property appraisal district sites to pull the property.
• - Some counties (Specially in states like Georgia) will want you to register and pay for some of these documents.

Anyways, I hope that helps as many commercial products will publish these after 30+ days! So speed is on your side! This will differentiate you from thousands of so-called investors who are hitting the same lists as everyone else :)

Let me know if you have any questions!