Memphis & Shelby County Foreclosure Statistics
Jump to: filings · auction sales · who buys · prices · ZIP codes · trustee firms · tax sale · quarterly reports · cite or reuse · download the data
Key takeaways — Q2 2026
- 237 new foreclosure filings in Shelby County (31.5% below a year earlier — the lowest quarter since at least January 2025)
- 124 homes completed foreclosure at auction; median sale price $121,001 vs. about $210,000–$215,000 (Redfin & Houzeo, May 2026) citywide
- Investors bought 40% of auctioned homes; individual people bought 15% — the largest individual share in five quarters
- 2,490 parcels on the county tax-sale list; 640 scheduled for October 27, 2026
- Every figure is free to republish with a link to this page (terms)
This page is the running statistical record of residential foreclosure in Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, maintained by the team behind the quarterly Shelby County Foreclosure Report. Every number is computed from Shelby County Register of Deeds or County Trustee public records — not modeled, not estimated (methodology). It is refreshed each quarter when the new report publishes; this URL is permanent.
How many foreclosures are filed in Shelby County?
Shelby County recorded 237 new foreclosure filings in Q2 2026 (April–June) — down 31.5% from a year earlier and the fewest in any quarter since at least January 2025. The first half of 2026 produced 578 filings, against 1,278 in all of 2025. A filing (an Appointment of Substitute Trustee) starts the process; it does not mean the home is lost.
How many Memphis homes are lost at foreclosure auction?
124 Shelby County homes completed foreclosure — sold at auction to a recorded Substitute Trustee’s Deed — in Q2 2026, down 11.4% from the prior quarter and 27.5% from a year earlier. 2025 saw 574 completed foreclosure sales; the first half of 2026 saw 264.
| Quarter | New filings | Completed auction sales | Median completed-sale price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 Q1 | 325 | 120 | — |
| 2025 Q2 | 346 | 171 | $123,011 |
| 2025 Q3 | 271 | 148 | $131,806 |
| 2025 Q4 | 336 | 135 | $121,000 |
| 2026 Q1 | 341 | 140 | $107,050 |
| 2026 Q2 | 237 | 124 | $121,001 |
Records begin January 2025; the Q1 2025 median predates the published dataset window. Completed sales in a quarter stem from filings made in earlier quarters, and not every filing reaches sale — loans are reinstated, modified, or paid off.
Who buys foreclosed homes at Memphis auctions?
At Shelby County foreclosure auctions in Q2 2026, investment entities bought 50 of the 124 homes sold (40%), foreclosing lenders or government-backed holders kept 54 (44%), and individual people bought 18 (15%) — the largest individual share in the five quarters tracked, which ran as low as 7% in 2025.
| Quarter | Auction sales | Investment entities | Lender / government | Individuals | Ambiguous |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 Q2 | 171 | 75 (44%) | 70 | 20 | 6 |
| 2025 Q3 | 148 | 77 (52%) | 56 | 10 | 5 |
| 2025 Q4 | 135 | 58 (43%) | 62 | 9 | 6 |
| 2026 Q1 | 140 | 61 (44%) | 60 | 15 | 4 |
| 2026 Q2 | 124 | 50 (40%) | 54 | 18 | 2 |
Classification of grantee names on Substitute Trustee’s Deeds; see the methodology for the rules and their limits.
What does a foreclosed Memphis home sell for?
The median completed foreclosure sale in Shelby County was $121,001 in Q2 2026 (across the 107 of 124 deeds recording a price) — a little more than half the typical Memphis home sale of about $210,000–$215,000 (Redfin & Houzeo, May 2026).
Which Memphis ZIP codes have the most foreclosures?
Midtown’s 38104 and Cordova’s 38016 recorded the most new foreclosure filings of any Memphis-area ZIP code in Q2 2026 (9 each), while 38109 in Southwest Memphis closed the most foreclosure auction sales (11).
| ZIP | New filings (Q2 2026) | Completed sales (Q2 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| 38016 | 9 | 7 |
| 38104 | 9 | 8 |
| 38017 | 8 | 1 |
| 38109 | 8 | 11 |
| 38111 | 8 | 8 |
| 38134 | 8 | 5 |
| 38053 | 7 | 2 |
| 38127 | 7 | 10 |
| 38106 | 6 | 6 |
| 38116 | 6 | 8 |
Top 10 by new filings among records with a resolvable property address (ties broken by ZIP number) (132 of 237 filings and 117 of 124 sales resolved in Q2 2026). Raw counts, not rates — larger ZIPs have more homes. The full ZIP table is in the quarterly report.
Which firms run Shelby County foreclosures?
The five busiest substitute-trustee firms were named in 44% of Shelby County’s 237 foreclosure filings in Q2 2026, led by Padgett Law Group with 37. The substitute trustee is chosen by the lender or its servicer, not the borrower.
| Substitute-trustee firm | Appointments (Q2 2026) |
|---|---|
| Padgett Law Group | 37 |
| Rubin Lublin TN | 24 |
| Clifton E Darnell | 15 |
| Robertson Anschutz Schneid Crane | 14 |
| LLG Trustee TN | 14 |
| AVT Title Services | 13 |
| Foundation Legal Group | 12 |
| Mickel Law Firm | 12 |
How many Shelby County properties face tax sale?
As of July 6, 2026, 2,490 Shelby County parcels sat on the County Trustee’s tax-sale list for delinquent property taxes — 640 of them assigned to Tax Sale 2301, scheduled for October 27, 2026. Tax sale is a separate process from mortgage foreclosure.
Source: the County Trustee’s published tax-sale schedule and parcel list, a point-in-time inventory.
The quarterly reports behind this page
- Shelby County Foreclosure Report — Q2 2026 (current edition, published July 2026)
- Shelby County Foreclosure Report — Q1 2026 (published June 2026)
Each edition carries the full findings, charts, methodology, and caveats for its quarter. The next edition (Q3 2026) publishes the first week of October 2026.
Cite or reuse these statistics
The statistics, tables, and charts on this page are free to republish — in news stories, research, classrooms, or on the web, including commercially. The only condition is attribution with a link to this page. Suggested citation:
As-Is Home Buyer, “Memphis & Shelby County Foreclosure Statistics,” updated August 2026, https://shelby.as-ishomebuyer.com/post/shelby-county-foreclosure-statistics
To link this page on the web:
<a href="https://shelby.as-ishomebuyer.com/post/shelby-county-foreclosure-statistics">Memphis & Shelby County Foreclosure Statistics</a>
These reuse terms are the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0). Every section has a stable anchor for deep links (for example #buyers or #tax-sale).
Download the data
The full aggregate dataset comes as one CSV: quarterly filings, completions, and median prices for the five quarters through Q2 2026, monthly initiation counts back to January 2025, the auction-buyer classification, ZIP-level counts, trustee-firm appointments, and repeat-buyer purchases. No sign-up, no individual homeowner information.
Download the aggregate dataset (CSV)
Same license: use it freely, link this page as the source. Need a cut that isn’t in the file? (901) 763-6616.
Methodology in brief
Foreclosure filings are documents indexed as “Appointment of Substitute TR” and completed sales are “Sub Trustees Deeds,” both from the Shelby County Register of Deeds public index (search.register.shelby.tn.us), by recording date, deduplicated by instrument number. Medians are computed over deeds recording a consideration amount. Buyer categories classify grantee names (corporate markers = investment entities; bank/servicer/government identifiers = lender-side; personal names = individuals). Tax-sale inventory is the County Trustee’s published extract. Samples are hand-checked against the Register’s records each quarter. The full methodology, caveats, and hand-check results are in the current quarterly report. Counts reflect documents as indexed and may differ from measures based on auctions scheduled or notices published. This page contains aggregate statistics only; no individual homeowner information.
If you are facing foreclosure: free HUD-approved housing counseling is available through the Homeowner’s HOPE Hotline at 888-995-4673, and a foreclosure filing does not mean the home is already lost — the Tennessee timeline and the steps that can stop a sale are laid out in how to stop a Memphis foreclosure, and selling a house in foreclosure before the auction date is one of those steps.
About this page. Maintained by As-Is Home Buyer, a home-buying company that purchases homes directly from Shelby County owners — including owners facing foreclosure — a commercial interest readers should weigh. The statistics are built solely from the public records described above. Analysis by Nick Hedberg. Questions about the data: (901) 763-6616 · shelby.as-ishomebuyer.com/memphis.
