Texas wrote the fastest foreclosure clock in America. State law requires a letter giving the borrower twenty days to cure the default, then twenty-one days of posted notice, and on the first Tuesday of the month the house goes to auction at the courthouse door. Federal servicing rules add a floor of 120 days of delinquency before the first legal step, so call it five months from the first missed payment to the crier calling for bids. Five months. Across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex this year, households have sailed past five months, past twelve, past fourteen, and the crier stays home. The reports are accurate in their bones: thousands of families are living in houses they stopped paying for, the lender mails a brochure about options, and nobody knocks.

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