One in 77 homes is vacant, for a total of 1.4 million residential “zombie” foreclosures nationwide, according to a new report from ATTOM Data. This figure has remained constant over the previous 11 quarters, according to the report.
“Zombie” properties are those that are in the foreclosure process and have also been abandoned by the owners.
The report stated that only one in 14,591 homes is considered a zombie home. One in 11,412 homes were considered zombie homes during the same timeframe last year, marking one of the lowest rates of zombie homes in the past five years.
A total of 215,601 residential properties in the U.S. are in the process of being foreclosed upon, which is down 3.3% from Q3, and 32.8% year-over-year. In Q4, roughly 7,100 of those pre-foreclosed properties are considered zombie properties, or are vacant. This figure is down slightly from Q3, but declined 20.2% year-over-year.
States with the steepest decline in rates of zombie homes year-over-year were Connecticut (an 87% decrease, from 100 zombie properties to 13), Iowa (76% decline, from 281 to 68), North Carolina (73% decline, from 195 to 53), New Mexico (72% decline, from 81 to 23) and Oklahoma (71% decline, from 197 to 58).
The only states with year-over-year increases in zombie foreclosures (at least 50) in Q4 2024 were Kansas (zombie properties increased 126%, from 35 to 79), Arizona (114% increase, from 28 to 60), Florida (65% increase, from 1,199 to 1,974), Texas (52% increase, from 126 to 191) and New Jersey (14% increase, from 188 to 215).
“The near-total disappearance of zombie foreclosures has been and still is one of the more subtle, but important benefits of the country’s soaring housing market,” said Rob Barber, ATTOM CEO, in a statement. “Those properties have gone from a plague in many areas of the U.S. following the Great Recession of the late 2000s, when millions of homes fell into foreclosure, to a distant memory in most communities today. That’s unlikely to change much in the near future given that record home prices are keeping home-equity levels at historic highs and foreclosures cases dropping. On top of that, the supply of homes is so tight that even when a property is abandoned, buyers are more likely to swoop in and pick it up.”
For the full report, click here.
