Why would a pre-foreclosure home owner not be motivated?

[Tony Marcelle]

Why would a person who is in pre-foreclosure with a deadline quickly approaching not be motivated to sell their house? They are going to be homeless real soon if they don't pay what they owe. Why are they not motivated to sell knowing they are going to be out on the curb?

[Chris Mason]

If it has a bunch of equity, the fact that it got to that point (pre-foreclosure) pretty much tells you that the owner is burying their head in the sand like an idiot, rather than facing reality and acting accordingly. 

Confirmation bias. Every time that owner gets a notice in the mail or posted to his/her door, they don't want it to be real, so they hop on google and find a zillion (true) stories about people that continued to live in their home -- without making any payments -- for a decade or more.