Every distressed-property influencer on YouTube has been screaming "the crash is here" since roughly 2022, and every year the auction block has yawned back at them. Well, the yawn just ended. Q2 foreclosure auctions hit a 6-year high, and the loans failing aren't your grandpa's underwater subprime, they're the class of 2022 finally paying the bill for buying at the top with an FHA loan.

Story: Completed foreclosure auctions climbed to 66% of Q1 2020 levels in the second quarter of 2026, up 23% year over year, matching a six-year high and marking the sixth consecutive quarter of annual increases, per Auction.com's Q2 Auction Market Dispatch. Scheduled auctions rose 13% (foreshadowing more Q3 volume). The eye-opener is the vintage: loans originated in 2022 or later accounted for 45% of all completed foreclosure auctions, more than double a year ago. Government-backed loans led the surge, with FHA-insured foreclosures up 47% YoY (95% of pre-pandemic levels) and Veterans Affairs (VA) auctions climbing to 106% of Q1 2020. Real Estate Owned (REO) auction volume was 11% higher than a year earlier, with the REO sales rate hitting a 4-year high. Buyer bids averaged 66.5% of estimated retail market value.

So What? This isn't 2008 déjà vu, and pretending it is will make you miss the trade. The distress signature is completely different: it's high-rate, low-equity FHA and VA borrowers who bought at the peak in 2022-2023 with 3.5% down, not overleveraged option-ARM disasters. That means the properties hitting auction are recent-vintage, decent-condition, and often in Sun Belt metros where those loans were most concentrated (Texas, Arizona, Colorado are already above pre-pandemic foreclosure levels per Auction.com). For SFR operators, community-scale buy boxes, and small landlords, the buy list just got bigger and pricing got 3% softer quarter over quarter.

What’s Next? Watch the Q3 print. Scheduled auctions up 13% YoY is the leading indicator, so completed volume should climb again next quarter. Second, watch the 30-year mortgage rate: Freddie hit 6.69% on Aug 6, the fifth straight weekly rise, which mechanically extends the payment stress on 2022-2024 buyers who were counting on a refi that never came. Third, watch FHA policy: the Federal Housing Administration has broad discretion to expand loss mitigation, and any tightening (or loosening) of loss-mit windows will move Q4 auction volume directly.

Source: HousingWire

The Cheapest Property Manager Is the Most Expensive (Here's Why)

Property management typically costs 8 to 10% of collected rent, but that monthly fee is only half of what it actually costs to compare two companies. In this video, Matthew Whitaker, founder of Evernest and author of How to Rent Your Home, breaks down the leasing fees, renewal fees, maintenance markups, and vacancy fees hiding behind the headline percentage, plus the simple math to compare quotes apples to apples. He also covers the real biggest cost in property management, an empty house, and when doing it yourself actually makes sense instead of hiring a manager.

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How to Build a $1 Million Real Estate Portfolio

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