Just in time for Halloween, America’s real estate market gets some unscary news: The zombies are going to their graves.
So-called “zombie” foreclosures—homes abandoned by owners before formal foreclosure proceedings are completed—fell to 3.25% at the start of the fourth quarter of 2025, down from 3.38% from the previous quarter, according to ATTOM’s fourth-quarter Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report released today.
These properties, left to decay after their owners ghost them, total about 7,448 nationwide out of 228,943 homes in foreclosure, ATTOM reported. And despite a slight uptick in foreclosure filings, the fact that fewer homeowners are simply walking away from their homes is a good thing.
“It’s a good sign for local housing markets that even as we’ve seen foreclosure filings increase, the rate of homes in foreclosure that are abandoned is going down,” said Rob Barber, ATTOM’s CEO.
The company’s fourth-quarter analysis also found that vacancy rates crept downward to 1.32% nationally, representing about 1.4 million homes. That figure has hovered around 1.4% for nearly four years, showing steady demand despite record-high home prices, Barber noted.
ATTOM’s report examined county tax assessor data for 104.3 million residential properties, focusing on metropolitan areas with at least 100,000 homes, counties with 50,000 or more properties and ZIP codes containing at least 1,000 residences.
Properties owned by institutional investors showed slightly higher vacancy rates than the overall market. Of 880,347 investor-owned homes nationwide, 3.5% sat empty compared to the 3.3% national rate. Indiana led states in investor property vacancies at 7.1%, followed by Illinois at 6.1%. New Hampshire again showed the lowest rate at 0.8%.
Regional spookies
While the number of zombie foreclosures is down, some states saw modest increases in these abandoned homes. Oregon led with a 37.8% jump to 51 zombie properties, followed by Nevada with a 31.1% increase to 59 properties. Georgia, Ohio and Arizona also saw upticks.
Oklahoma posted the steepest decline, with zombie properties falling 23% to 57. Indiana, California, Michigan and Iowa also recorded significant drops.
The states most haunted by vacant properties were Oklahoma at 2.4%, Kansas at 2.3% and Alabama at 2.2%. New England states proved more resistant to vacancy, with New Hampshire posting just 0.3%, followed by Vermont at 0.4% and New Jersey at 0.5%.
Midwest’s zombie problem
Metropolitan areas in America’s heartland struggled most with abandoned foreclosures. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, topped the list with 14.3% of pre-foreclosure homes sitting empty. Peoria, Illinois, came in second at 11.9%, while Wichita, Kansas, and two Ohio cities—Cleveland and Youngstown—rounded out the top five.
By contrast, four major metros reported zero zombie properties: Grand Rapids, Michigan; Nashville, Tennessee; and Raleigh and Wilmington in North Carolina.
Among the 134 metro areas analyzed with at least 100,000 properties and 100 homes in foreclosure, 56% had zombie rates below the national average.
Some neighborhoods proved far spookier than others. Among 2,247 ZIP codes with at least 1,000 properties and 25 in pre-foreclosure, about 65% had zombie rates below the national average.
The ZIP code 91001 in Altadena, California, topped the list with a staggering 56% zombie rate. Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Cleveland, Ohio; and two St. Petersburg, Florida, ZIP codes also showed concentrated abandonment issues.
