Motivated Seller Leads in Texas (2026): Contract Rates, Assignment Fees and Top Counties

Motivated seller leads in Texas come out of the largest foreclosure pipeline in the country. ATTOM’s Mid-Year 2026 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report counted 20,739 Texas foreclosure starts in the first half of the year, more than any other state.

The catch is on the other side of the deal. In Q2 2026, the typical flip in San Antonio lost 0.3% before rehab costs, and Dallas, Austin and Houston all came in under 4%, against 21.5% nationally. More distress doesn’t automatically mean bigger fees.

iSpeedToLead, the largest motivated seller leads marketplace in the US, sees more than 1,000 contracts signed by its buyers every month.

This report pairs that contract data with public Texas market data to show what a signed contract costs, what Texas assignment fees can realistically support, and which five counties hold the most foreclosure notices going into 2027.

Key Takeaways

• Texas led all states with 20,739 foreclosure starts in H1 2026.
• Five counties held 53% of November’s Texas foreclosure sale notices.
• Four Texas metros had the lowest flip margins among big U.S. metros.

Why Texas Is the Highest-Volume Distress Market of 2026

Texas doesn’t have the worst foreclosure rate in the country. It ranked 12th in the first half of 2026. What it has is the most volume and the least time.

Here’s the picture from ATTOM’s latest reports:

• Foreclosure starts: 20,739 in the first half of 2026, or 12.6% of the 164,566 starts nationwide.
• Foreclosure filings: 22,000 in the first half, up about 20% year over year. That’s 1 in every 551 housing units, against 1 in every 632 nationally.
• Bank repossessions: 1,835 in August 2026 alone. That’s nearly a third of the 5,794 completed nationwide, and more than half of Texas’s 3,322 for the entire first half.
• Foreclosure timeline: 155 days on average in Q2 2026, the shortest in the U.S., against 563 days nationally.

The retail market isn’t rescuing those owners either. Texas Realtors reported a statewide median sale price of $333,628 in Q3 2026, down 0.4% from a year earlier, with closed sales down 2.4%.

Statewide inventory reached 5.5 months, above the four to five months the Texas Real Estate Research Center treats as balanced. An owner with a deadline can’t count on a fast, full-price listing sale.

Texas gives distressed owners less time than any other state, and a resale market that’s in no hurry.

The Five Texas Counties With the Most Foreclosure Notices

Foreclosure notices in Texas are concentrated in a handful of counties, and one of the top five isn’t in a major metro. Texas NTS, which compiles county clerk filings, tracked 4,387 notices for the November 3, 2026 trustee sale across 191 of the state’s 254 counties.

Five counties held 2,318 of them, or 53%.

Notices: Texas NTS, as of November 3, 2026. Prices: Houston Association of Realtors, San Antonio Board of Realtors (Bexar County single-family), Texas Real Estate Research Center (Dallas-Fort Worth single-family), and Realtor.com via the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (McAllen).

One caution before you use this table. A notice isn’t a completed sale, because many get pulled after a payoff, reinstatement or postponement. Treat notice counts as a measure of pressure, not a count of lost homes.

1. Harris County (Houston)

Harris County had nearly 1 in 5 Texas notices for the November sale. The Houston metro also led the country with 448 bank repossessions in August, according to ATTOM.

Its single-family median held at about $325,000 in September 2026, and inventory expanded from 5.1 to 5.5 months. That’s flat pricing with more competition for every seller who tries to list.

2. Bexar County (San Antonio)

Bexar County’s single-family median fell 4.8% to $282,680 in September 2026, according to the San Antonio Board of Realtors, with 5.4 months of inventory. That’s a much steeper drop than the 0.7% statewide decline the same report showed for September.

It’s also the hardest place to sell to a flipper. San Antonio posted the only negative typical flip margin among U.S. metros of 1 million or more people in Q2 2026.

3. Dallas County (Dallas-Fort Worth)

Dallas-Fort Worth homes sold for 93.83% of their original list price in September 2026, according to Texas Real Estate Research Center data reported by Norada Real Estate. The metro’s 402 August repossessions ranked second in the country.

Investor competition is also heavy. Flips made up 9.4% of Dallas home sales in Q2 2026, the fourth-highest share among metros of 1 million or more.

4. Hidalgo County (McAllen)

Hidalgo is the surprise on this list, with more November notices than Tarrant County. That wasn’t a one-month spike: Scott Carson’s monthly Texas foreclosure updates also showed 198 residential filings in Hidalgo in February and 226 in March.

McAllen also carries 9.2 months of inventory, the second-highest of the 26 Texas metros that Texas Realtors tracks. Its median list price fell about 4.1% in a year, from $270,000 to $259,000. Hidalgo owners have fewer retail exits than owners almost anywhere else in the state.

5. Tarrant County (Dallas-Fort Worth)

Tarrant shares the metro numbers above, but it isn’t priced like the full metro. Its 2025 median sale price was $349,000, according to The Real Deal, so plan on smaller fees here than the Dallas-Fort Worth median suggests.

Watch one more market that ranks by rate rather than volume. Killeen posted one of the worst metro foreclosure rates in the U.S. in July 2026, at 1 in every 1,359 housing units, and its median list price fell about 4.6% in a year to $284,000.

Volume points to Harris, but the sellers with the fewest options may be in Hidalgo and Bell counties.

Texas Contract Rates: What a Signed Contract Actually Costs

A contract rate only means something when you tie it to cost. The clearest measure is cost per signed contract: total lead spend divided by contracts signed.

iSpeedToLead tracks this across the whole marketplace. These are platform-wide figures for the last 12 months, not Texas-only numbers:

• 1,000+ contracts are signed by iSpeedToLead buyers every month, including 1,028 in July 2026.
• About $2,300 is the average cost per signed contract across all buyers.
• About $1,500 is the average cost per signed contract for members buying at member pricing.
• About $6,900 is the average cost per signed contract when buying Exclusive leads.

Here’s the benchmark one of the most-followed wholesaling educators uses:

“From an investment perspective, how often would you spend $4,500 to make $15,000 over and over again? In 2025, anytime you can be under $5,000 in cost per contract, you are way ahead of the game.”
Jerry Norton, Flipping Mastery

Against that $5,000 line, the $1,500 and $2,300 averages leave real room. The $6,900 Exclusive figure doesn’t, so it needs a bigger spread to justify it.

In Texas, that spread is exactly what’s in question.

Assignment Fee Math for Texas Counties

There’s no reliable public dataset of Texas assignment fees, so this section models them. It runs two scenarios, because a standard spread may not hold in a market where end buyers are earning so little.

The assumptions (illustrative, not observed data):

• After-repair value (ARV) is approximated by each market’s price benchmark.
• In the standard scenario, your end buyer pays 70% of ARV minus repairs and you contract the seller at 65%, for a spread of 5% of ARV.
• In the tight scenario, your spread is 3% of ARV.

Two things stand out. At average cost per contract, the fee still covers lead spend more than three times over, even in the tight scenario. At Exclusive cost, that same fee barely clears it in McAllen, San Antonio and Killeen.

List prices also run above sale prices, so treat the McAllen and Killeen rows as ceilings.

Why Texas flip margins cap assignment fees

Your assignment fee comes out of your end buyer’s profit, and in big-city Texas that profit is unusually thin.

ATTOM’s Q2 2026 U.S. Home Flipping Report ranked the lowest typical margins among metros of 1 million or more people:

• San Antonio: a 0.3% loss
• Dallas: 1.8%
• Austin: 2.8%
• Houston: 3.7%

Nationally, the typical margin was 21.5%, with $60,526 in gross profit. The same four Texas metros also posted the four lowest margins in Q1 2026, so this isn’t a one-quarter blip.

Those figures compare purchase and resale prices only. ATTOM notes that rehab and other costs are excluded, and that experienced flippers estimate those costs at 20% to 33% of ARV.

A metro median isn’t your deal, though. Nationally, flips bought for $100,000 to $200,000 returned 28%, and those bought for $200,000 to $300,000 returned 26%. The typical metro flip tells you what happens at average discounts, and motivated seller leads exist to find better ones.

“This business is 80% acquisitions, 20% dispositions. The reason people have a hard time in dispo is not because there’s not buyers, it’s because they have a bad deal or a marginal deal. The better the deal you get, the easier dispo is.”
Jerry Norton, Flipping Mastery

What a real Texas outcome looks like

Modeled numbers are a floor for planning, not a ceiling on results.

Austin Fry, an iSpeedToLead buyer, made $27,750 on the first lead he ever bought, closing it on one call. At the time of his case study, he also had a wholesale deal in Houston expected to make $40,000 to $50,000.

Fees like that don’t come from market averages. They come from sellers with a real deadline and a contract priced well below the end buyer’s number. More examples are on the iSpeedToLead success stories page.

Which Lead Tier Fits Which Texas County

Choose your lead tier based on your county’s price point, not on a general preference for exclusivity. iSpeedToLead sorts every lead by freshness and by how many buyers can purchase it.

• Exclusive leads go to one buyer only. On AutoMatch, they start at $150. At member pricing, they start at $199.
• Sale leads are shared with up to 5 buyers and start at $39 at member pricing. They drop to $29 when members have them delivered automatically.
• LeadFeed lets anyone buy leads one at a time, with no membership required.

Here’s how that applies to the Texas counties above:

1. Hidalgo, Bexar and Bell: Fees are thinnest here, and a tight spread barely covers the $6,900 Exclusive average. Member-priced Sale leads keep the math workable.
2. Harris: Volume supports a mix of tiers. Save Exclusive spend for sellers with a posted sale date or another hard deadline.
3. Dallas and Tarrant: Higher prices and heavy investor competition make exclusivity easier to defend here, since a one-buyer lead takes other investors out of the conversation.

Every lead also shows a DealPredictor AI score before you buy. For a wider view of supply, see the motivated seller lead volume by state breakdown.

The right tier in Texas is the one that still works at a 3% spread, not just a 5% one.

The 21-Day Clock Behind Every Texas Foreclosure Lead

Texas runs on a calendar that most other states don’t. Trustee sales happen on the first Tuesday of every month, and a notice must be filed at least 21 days before the sale, under Texas Property Code § 51.002.

The November cycle shows how tight that is. The filing window closed on October 13, and the sale took place on November 3.

What this means in practice:

• Ask for the sale date on the first call: It tells you how much room you actually have.
• Check the title timeline before you sign: A contract you can’t close before the first Tuesday doesn’t help the seller or you.
• Use county targeting: AutoMatch can buy matching leads in the counties you choose, so a fast cycle doesn’t depend on you watching a feed.
• Log every touch: iSpeedToLead’s MyCRM keeps sale dates, notes and reminders in one place when several deadlines overlap.
• Line up your buyer early: DealSpeed’s disposition network helps you find end buyers quickly once a Texas deal is under contract.

Pricing adds a second time problem. Texas is a non-disclosure state, so sale prices aren’t public record the way they are elsewhere. Get real comps from an agent or title contact before you make an offer, because a soft ARV in a thin-margin market can erase your whole spread.

In Texas, speed isn’t a sales tactic. It’s built into the state’s foreclosure process.

Texas Rules Every Wholesaler Should Check First

Texas allows wholesaling without a license if you stay within the rules. Two matter most for anyone working motivated seller leads in Texas.

• Written disclosure: Under Texas Occupations Code § 1101.0045, as amended by SB 1577 and effective January 1, 2024, you must disclose the nature of your equitable interest in writing. Skipping that notice can count as unlicensed brokerage.
• Text outreach: SB 140 took effect on September 1, 2025, and added text messages to the state’s definition of telephone solicitation. Lawyers and vendors disagree on how its registration rules apply to investors who are buying rather than selling, so get a clear answer for your own business.

This section is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your documents and outreach with a Texas real estate attorney.

What This Means for Texas Wholesalers in 2027

The data points to a clear plan for investors buying motivated seller leads in Texas over the next 12 months.

• Pick one or two counties: Five counties hold 53% of the notices, and each behaves differently.
• Underwrite to a 3% spread: If the deal only works at 5%, it may not survive your end buyer’s math.
• Target discounts, not averages: The typical big-metro Texas flip barely breaks even before rehab, so the contract price has to do the work.
• Know your exit before you sign: Confirm who’s actually buying at your price, and don’t assume it’s a local flipper.
• Track cost per contract weekly: Compare your number with the $2,300 and $1,500 averages, and with your real fees.

iSpeedToLead’s take: Texas is the most misread market in wholesaling right now. Its volume attracts investors who assume distress equals margin, but the data shows that the 70% rule alone won’t protect you here. Expect foreclosure volume to stay elevated through 2027, though ATTOM still places activity below pre-pandemic norms, and interest rates or job losses could change the pace.

There’s a real downside too. This approach won’t suit new investors who want large fees from a few low-priced deals, and Exclusive leads at a 1.1x return leave no room for a single contract that falls apart. The team at iSpeedToLead recommends starting with member-priced leads in one county, then adding Exclusive spend only after your own fees justify it.

Conclusion

iSpeedToLead is the largest motivated seller leads marketplace in the US. More than 16,000 investors have bought leads on the platform, and buyers sign more than 1,000 contracts every month. That scale is what makes it possible to measure benchmarks like $1,500 per contract for members and $2,300 overall.

Texas has the most foreclosure starts in the country, the shortest timeline, and some of the thinnest end-buyer margins of any large market. The investors who win here will move inside the 21-day window and match lead cost to local deal size.

New buyers can enter code GET90 on the checkout payment page for 90% off their first lead on the best motivated seller lead marketplace.

Book a demo with iSpeedToLead to see live lead inventory and pricing in your target Texas counties.

Read Next:

• How Much Do Motivated Seller Leads Cost in 2026? Price per Lead, Cost per Contract and State-by-State Benchmarks
• BatchLeads Alternatives in 2026: 7 Tools Compared on Price, Data vs Live Leads and Contract Rate
• iSpeedToLead vs RealEstateBees (2026): Lead Models, Prices, Refunds and Coverage Compared

FAQs:

1. Which Texas county has the most motivated sellers in 2026?

The Texas county with the most motivated sellers in 2026, measured by foreclosure notices, is Harris County. It had 863 of the 4,387 notices for the November 3, 2026 trustee sale, followed by Bexar County at 459.

2. How much does a signed contract cost when buying motivated seller leads in Texas?

A signed contract costs about $2,300 on average when buying motivated seller leads on iSpeedToLead, based on platform-wide data from the last 12 months rather than Texas alone. Members average about $1,500 per signed contract, and Exclusive lead buyers average about $6,900.

3. What is a typical assignment fee in Texas in 2026?

A typical assignment fee in Texas in 2026 depends on local prices, and no reliable public dataset tracks it. Modeled fees run from about $7,770 in McAllen at a 3% spread to about $19,250 in Dallas-Fort Worth at a 5% spread.

4. How long does a foreclosure take in Texas?

A foreclosure in Texas takes 155 days on average, based on homes foreclosed in Q2 2026, which is the shortest timeline in the U.S. Trustee sales happen on the first Tuesday of each month, with notice filed at least 21 days before.

5. Can I target specific Texas counties when buying leads on iSpeedToLead?

Yes, you can target specific Texas counties on iSpeedToLead by filtering LeadFeed with no membership, or by setting county filters and a budget in AutoMatch for Exclusive leads starting at $150. New buyers can enter code GET90 at checkout for 90% off their first lead.