If you’re behind on a Hickory Hill mortgage and a substitute trustee’s notice has landed in your mailbox, the clock is shorter than it looks. Tennessee is a non-judicial foreclosure state, so there’s no drawn-out court case — the bank’s lawyers can auction your 38115 house on the Shelby County Courthouse steps roughly three to four weeks after they publish the first notice. We’re a Memphis-based end-buyer that closes Hickory Hill pre-foreclosures in seven to fourteen days, in cash, so you can stop the sale and keep whatever equity you’ve built.
Why Hickory Hill sellers facing foreclosure call us
Here’s the trap specific to this part of town: Hickory Hill homes sit. The median home price in Hickory Hill was around $189,000 heading into 2026, but the median days on market has stretched to roughly 64 days (Redfin). That number is the whole problem. A non-judicial foreclosure notice in Tennessee gives you about 20 to 26 days before the gavel falls — and the typical 38115 listing takes more than twice that long just to go under contract, before you even add inspection and closing. Listing with an agent to beat a foreclosure date here is a bet against your own zip code’s numbers — a gap the national “we buy houses” sites skip when they tell you to list first.
How a pre-foreclosure cash sale works in Hickory Hill
- Call us with your payoff amount and the sale date. Read us the date and the foreclosure firm printed on the substitute trustee’s notice — in Shelby County that’s usually Mackie Wolf Zientz & Mann, Rubin Lublin, or Wilson & Associates. That tells us exactly how many days of runway you have.
- We come look the same day. Hickory Hill’s housing stock is mostly 1970s and ’80s brick ranches and split-levels — the subdivisions that went up fast after the area boomed and before Memphis annexed it in 1998. We know these floor plans and their common issues (original HVAC, aging roofs, slab plumbing), so the walk-through is quick and we don’t nickel-and-dime you on them.
- Written cash offer within 24 hours. No repair list, no financing contingency, no appraisal that can collapse the deal at the last minute. The number we put in writing is the number you sign.
- Title and payoff run at the same time. We order the payoff from your lender and clear title in parallel, which is how the timeline compresses into days instead of the 64-plus it takes to sell on the open market here.
- We pay the bank and hand you the balance. Whatever’s left after the loan payoff is yours, and there’s no foreclosure on your credit report.
A real Hickory Hill foreclosure scenario
A homeowner on a curving street off Ridgeway Road, a few minutes from the old Hickory Ridge Mall site, fell three months behind after a job loss. The substitute trustee’s notice gave him 24 days. He owed about $141,000 including arrears and fees on a brick ranch worth roughly $185,000 at retail — real equity, but nowhere near enough time to list against a 64-day market. We offered $158,000 cash, closed in eight days at a title office on Winchester Road, paid the lender in full, and cut him a check for about $17,000. The foreclosure was cancelled before it ever ran downtown.
What Hickory Hill homeowners need to know about Tennessee foreclosure law
Tennessee non-judicial foreclosure is governed by Tennessee Code Annotated §35-5-101 through §35-5-111. Three things most 38115 owners don’t realize:
- The sale notice must be published in a newspaper of general circulation in Shelby County for three consecutive weeks, with the first run at least 20 days before the auction. That first publication date is your real deadline — not the sale date itself. Once it runs, the calendar is locked.
- Your equity of redemption was almost certainly waived in your deed of trust, as it is in nearly every modern Tennessee mortgage. Once the property sells on the courthouse steps, you cannot buy it back. The equity in your Hickory Hill house is only protectable before the sale.
- Hickory Hill was unincorporated Shelby County until Memphis annexed it in 1998, and a lot of the area’s homes have since become rentals with second mortgages or HELOCs layered on. If there’s a junior lien on your title, it doesn’t stop us — we clear all recorded liens at closing so nothing follows you afterward.
Why a local end-buyer beats Opendoor or a wholesaler in Hickory Hill
Opendoor and the national iBuyers are thin in a market like 38115, and when they do make an offer it lands well under a real cash number — plus they can re-trade you on “repairs” days before closing, which a foreclosure seller has no time to absorb. Wholesalers are the bigger danger here, because Hickory Hill is heavily targeted by them. The person texting “I’ll buy your Hickory Hill house today” often isn’t a buyer at all — they lock your house under contract, then shop your address to a list of investors, and if they can’t flip the paper before your sale date they walk, leaving you back on the courthouse steps with less time than before. We do not assign your contract. We close with our own funds as the end-buyer. Tennessee’s SB909 wholesaler-disclosure law exists precisely because of that bait-and-switch.
FAQ
Q: Can you close before my Shelby County substitute trustee sale date?
A: Yes, if you call at least 10 days out. We’ve closed Hickory Hill pre-foreclosures in as few as 7 business days when title is clean.
Q: My house has been hard to sell before. Does that hurt my chances with you?
A: No. Long days-on-market is exactly why cash matters in 38115 — we don’t rely on the open market or a buyer’s financing.
Q: Do I have to be underwater to sell to you?
A: No. Most Hickory Hill sellers we work with still have equity, and our whole goal is to pay the loan and get that equity back to you.
Q: There’s a second mortgage on the house. Is that a problem?
A: No. We handle junior liens and HELOCs at closing so the title transfers clean.
Q: Do I need to make repairs or clean it out?
A: No. We buy as-is. Take what you want and leave the rest behind.
Q: Is the offer really no-obligation?
A: Yes. It’s a free call, and there’s no pressure if you’d rather keep working with your servicer.
Get your no-obligation cash offer
If your sale date is on the calendar, the safe move in Hickory Hill is to act before that first newspaper notice locks the timeline — because the local market is too slow to sell around it. Call (901) 531-9917 or visit our cash offer page and we’ll have a written number to you within 24 hours. Our office is at 5100 Poplar Ave Suite 2705, Memphis TN 38137. Want to weigh your options first? Our foreclosure FAQ walks through the alternatives. Facing the same clock nearby, or settling an estate in the area? See selling before foreclosure in Cordova and selling an inherited Hickory Hill house. Don’t wait for the auction — call (901) 531-9917.