If you’ve noticed more work orders hitting your queue over the past few months, you’re not imagining things. The numbers back it up, and the trend has legs.
Here’s what’s driving it. Foreclosure activity has increased year-over-year for twelve consecutive months now. February 2026 saw nearly 26,000 foreclosure starts nationwide. Completed foreclosures — the REOs that generate the heaviest preservation workloads — are up 35% from a year ago. This isn’t a temporary blip. Multiple structural factors are pushing this forward.
Insurance costs are climbing hard, especially in disaster-prone states like Florida. First Street, a risk modeling firm, projects that foreclosures could increase significantly for every percentage point rise in insurance premiums. When a homeowner who was already stretched thin suddenly sees their insurance bill jump by $2,000 or $3,000 a year, that’s often the tipping point.
Interest rates are still elevated compared to the pandemic era. Homeowners who bought or refinanced at 2.5% to 3% are locked in, but anyone who’s fallen behind on payments is facing a much tougher road to catch up or refinance out. The escape hatches that existed in a low-rate environment just aren’t there anymore.
The forbearance and moratorium exits from 2020 to 2022 created a delayed pipeline. Some of those loans have been working through modification processes for years, and a percentage of them were always going to end up in foreclosure — it was just a matter of when. That “when” is now.
For vendors, the play is straightforward: capacity and quality. The companies that can handle increased volume without dropping quality or missing timelines will be the ones that grow. Nationals and servicers are always looking for reliable vendors, and rising volume means they need more of them.
If you’re running a smaller operation, this is the time to tighten up your systems, get your documentation processes dialed in, and make sure you can scale your crew when the orders pick up. The wave is building, and it’s going to reward the vendors who were ready for it.