DFW Trustee Sales, November 3, 2026: The Notice Behind Every Lead

936 residential properties are posted for the November 2026 trustee sales across the nine North Texas counties where we read the postings, as of October 24, 2026. Dallas County carries 302, Tarrant 249, Collin 134 and Denton 94. The sale is Nov 3, 2026, on the courthouse steps, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Last month's report covered who the posted owners are. This one is about the document itself. A pre-foreclosure lead is only as good as the notice behind it, and in Texas the notice is a public record you can read. Here is what it says, how to check it, and what to do in the three weeks between posting and sale.

What a notice of trustee sale is

Texas foreclosures are non-judicial. No judge, no lawsuit. The deed of trust the owner signed at closing lets a trustee sell the house if the loan defaults, and the Property Code sets the steps:

1. Default and opportunity to cure. For a home the owner lives in, the servicer must send a written notice of default and give at least 20 days to catch up before it can accelerate the loan.
2. Notice of sale, at least 21 days before the auction. The trustee files the notice with the County Clerk, posts it at the courthouse door, and mails it to the borrower by certified mail. All three.
3. The sale on the first Tuesday of the month, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., at the place the county commissioners designated. The notice names the earliest time the sale will begin, and it must start within three hours of that time.

So every posted property on the list above has a notice on file at its County Clerk, filed no later than mid-October. That filing is the lead.

What the notice says

A notice of trustee sale is usually two to four pages. The parts that matter to a buyer:

• The borrower and the lender or servicer. Who signed the deed of trust and who is foreclosing. The lender named here is often not the original one; loans are sold.
• The deed of trust it is foreclosing, by its recording date and instrument number. That is the loan in default, and it tells you where the house sits in the lien stack. A first-lien foreclosure wipes out junior liens; a HOA or second-lien foreclosure does not touch the first mortgage.
• The property, as a legal description (lot, block, subdivision) and usually a street address.
• The sale date, earliest time and place.
• The trustee or substitute trustee, with a phone number. This is the person who can tell you whether the sale is still on.
• Sometimes the unpaid balance or an opening bid. Most notices in DFW do not state one.

Every pre-foreclosure lead on SmartPropLeads shows the notice's document number, the date it was filed, the lender or servicer, the trustee and the auction date, and it names the clerk's index it came from. The document number is the thing to keep: it is how you pull the notice itself at the County Clerk, and how you confirm the lead is real before you spend a stamp on it.

How to read the number back to the clerk

Each county publishes its real-property index online. In Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Grayson and Johnson the clerk's search runs on the GovOS "publicsearch" portal, where a document number pulls up the notice and its scanned pages for free. Kaufman, Hunt, Wise, Rockwall and the other Tyler counties use the clerk's Self-Service site, which asks you to accept a disclaimer first. Ellis runs AcclaimWeb; Parker's index needs a free account.

What to check when you open the notice:

1. Does the legal description match the house? The notice is filed against a lot and block. We match it to the appraisal parcel; look at the subdivision name and confirm.
2. Which lien is foreclosing? Read the deed-of-trust date. If it is a 2024 second lien on a house bought in 2015, the first mortgage survives the sale.
3. Who is the trustee? Call before the sale. Postponements and cancellations are announced at the courthouse, not refiled, so the clerk's index will not tell you the sale was pulled. The trustee will.

Postings for the November 2026 sale, by county

County	Properties posted
Dallas	302
Tarrant	249
Collin	134
Denton	94
Ellis	65
Rockwall	24
Wise	9
Hunt	15
Parker	24
All nine counties	936

Of the posted residential parcels we have matched to the roll, the median appraised value is $331,392, 55.5% carry a homestead exemption, and 40.5% were bought before 2020. These are owners with equity and a payment they cannot make, which is the owner a cash offer actually helps.

For the backdrop: ATTOM counted Texas first in the nation for foreclosure starts through the first half of 2026, and North Texas filings reached a six-year high this fall. More postings each month means more owners who have not yet been found by anyone.

The three-week playbook

The notice is filed by the 21-day deadline, so the clock from posting to sale is short. Work it in order.

Week one, the day the posting appears. Mail a plain letter to the owner's mailing address of record, which is often not the house. Say who you are, that you buy houses for cash, and that a sale can close before the auction date. Do not mention the foreclosure in the first line; the owner already knows. A letter that arrives in week one gets read.

Week two, confirm and underwrite. Pull the notice by its document number. Read which lien is foreclosing. Look at the loan history on the lead, estimate what is owed, and compare it with the value. If the owner has equity, you have a deal to offer; if the house is underwater, the only buyer is the lender, and you should move on.

Week three, call the trustee, then the owner. The trustee tells you if the sale is still on or has been postponed, which happens often. If it is on, the owner now has days, not weeks, and a clean contract with a title company that can close fast is a real option for them. Skip-trace the owner's number only if you will follow the Do-Not-Call rules, and remember that cold texting in Texas is now registered telemarketing.

After the first Tuesday. A posted house that did not sell is still a lead. Many sales are postponed to the next month, and some owners list or sell in the weeks after a cancelled sale. Our pre-foreclosure list keeps a property for 60 days after a held sale unless a new deed records, so the lead does not vanish on sale day.

Browse every posted property in DFW, with the document number on each one — free →

Founding seats: through November 14, 2026, DFW investors and agents get 30 days of Elite free plus a 30-minute call where I build your first list with you. Details →

Frequently asked questions

Where does the posting list come from? From the notices of trustee sale filed with each County Clerk and, where the county publishes them, the postings pages of the foreclosure services the trustees use. Each notice is matched to its appraisal parcel. The counts refresh weekly, and the "as of" date at the top is the last refresh.

Can I see the actual notice? Yes. Every lead shows the notice's document number and the clerk's index it came from, and the clerk's online search pulls the scanned document by that number for free in most DFW counties. A direct link from the lead to the clerk's copy is being tested now and will follow.

Does a posting mean the house will sell at auction? No. A large share of posted sales are postponed, reinstated or pulled when the owner files bankruptcy. Only the trustee knows for sure; the phone number is on the notice.

Is it legal to contact a posted owner? Yes. The notice is a public record and a letter offering to buy a house is ordinary commerce. Be plain about who you are, never suggest a connection to the court, the lender or the trustee, and follow Do-Not-Call rules for any phone number you trace.

What is the difference between a pre-foreclosure and a foreclosure? Here, a pre-foreclosure is a house with an active notice of trustee sale, or one whose sale was held in the last 60 days with no new deed recorded since. Once a deed records after the sale, the house is lender-owned or has a new owner, and it moves to the lender-owned list.

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All counts are live from SmartPropLeads' DFW data as of October 24, 2026, across 13 counties and 3,290,309 parcels. They refresh weekly. Texas Property Code § 51.002 sets the notice and sale rules described above.