By the time a property hits the county foreclosure sale, you are competing with everyone, but reach it earlier and you may be competing with no one at all. In this interview, Josh Cadillac, a full-time real estate professional since 2008, former Chase foreclosure listing agent, veteran of tens of thousands of short sales, and active buyer of defaulted notes and reverse mortgages, lays out the world of opportunity that exists before the gavel ever drops. His core insight, learned from years on the bank’s side of the table, is that lenders genuinely hate owning real estate because of reserve requirements, liability, and deterioration, which is why they often prefer a clean short sale to a foreclosure and will even stage bidding wars with prices they never intend to accept. From there the conversation becomes a practical playbook: how much time an investor really has once a lis pendens is filed, how a judge can be persuaded to cancel a scheduled sale, why Florida’s strong homestead protections make it a favorable short sale state, and why a short sale is never complete without an offer, which is exactly what lets a prepared buyer become the gatekeeper on the deal while taking on far less title risk than at the courthouse steps. Josh details how to approach a frightened homeowner without high-pressure tactics, why a short sale protects their credit where a deed in lieu does not, how to craft a “quasi-reasonable” offer the bank’s valuation will support, why HOAs rather than second mortgages are usually the real fight, and how to handle deficiency judgments and 1099 consequences honestly. He then goes deep on non-performing notes, explaining why banks sell paper to raise liquidity, why a certain default rate is deliberately baked into every lender’s model, and why most small investors should start passively in a fund before buying pools that run below roughly 70 cents on the dollar. The episode closes on HUD reverse mortgages, how a HECM works, what pushes one into default, where investors can step in, and some sobering title horror stories, including a HUD satisfaction reversed two months after an auction sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n