The U.S. has about 1.36 million residential properties that are vacant. But only a few of these homes are what Attom describes as zombie foreclosures.
The real estate analytics company has released its most recent Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report Thursday, just in time for Halloween. The report found that 1.3% of the nation’s housing stock is vacant. Attom also reports that 215,601 U.S. homes are in the process of foreclosure in the fourth quarter, down 3.3% from the third quarter and a decrease of nearly 33% from a year ago.
Among the pre-foreclosure properties, about 7,100 sit vacant and are what Attom calls zombie foreclosures. These are properties that have been abandoned by their owners. The number of zombie foreclosures is slightly higher than in the third quarter, but down more than 20% from the same time in 2023.
Attom reports that currently just one out of every 14,591 U.S. homes falls into the zombie category. The percentage of zombie homes has increased 1.5% from the third quarter of this year but is down more than 20% from the same quarter of 2023.
Zombie foreclosures, which can attract vandals, spread blight and lower housing values, became a problem for some cities following the housing recession of 2008. But the phenomenon has almost disappeared, thanks to the housing market boom across the country that is now in its 13th year, according to Attom.
“The near-total disappearance zombie foreclosures has been and still is one of the more subtle, but important benefits of the country’s soaring housing market,” said Attom CEO Rob Barber. “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.”
