Want to take a lot of listings rapidly?

The trick to do this is by targeting pre-foreclosure properties. There's 2.7 million homes in America today that are in a pre-foreclosure status. That number is so high because a lot of people have applied for a forbearance due to the COVID crisis, the struggling economy, and not being able to make their house payments.

A forbearance is where the lender gives the owner an opportunity to restructure their loan so they can either move or skip payments then make a balloon payment at the end.

But a lot of people are going into default because they're not able to get caught back up.

Here's the latest numbers we found from principal economist, Yanling Mayer from CoreLogic:

39.1% of all forborne loans are now 150 days behind payment. And 25% are 180 days past due.

Now, I don't say this to scare you that we're in 2009 again. The sky is not falling — and there are many differences between the market we were in then...

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association 12% of Mortgages were not paid on time in the month of May and this number is likely to rise during Covid-19.

When a borrower has missed more than one house payment their lender will at some point send a Notice of Default to them. This is a notification that the lender is beginning a foreclosure process. This process takes several months to complete depending on the type of loan instrument that was used, the state and local rules regarding foreclosure, and the lenders backlog of other foreclosures.

During this time the borrower can always make their payments and pay the penalties to avoid losing the property and, of course, lenders always prefer that the delinquent account be reinstated rather than take the property in foreclosure.

There are many reasons for a homeowner not to make their mortgage payment including job loss, illness, divorce, or a death in the family. When an event or a series of events prevents the homeowner from making...