ATTOM: Zombie Foreclosures See Slight Increase in Q3, Vacancy Rate Near Flat

(Image courtesy of David McElwee/pexels.com)

ATTOM, Irvine, Calif., released its third-quarter Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report, finding that 1.4 million residential properties are vacant. That’s about 1.3% of all homes in the U.S.

The national vacancy rate has been fairly flat for about 3.5 years.

The states with the highest vacant property rate in Q3 were Oklahoma (2.4%), Kansas (2.3%), Alabama (2.2%), Missouri (2.2%) and West Virginia (2.1%).

The states with the lowest rates were New Hampshire (0.35%), Vermont (0.41%), New Jersey (0.51%), Idaho (0.51%) and Connecticut (0.54%).

Across the country, 222,318 properties were in the process of foreclosure. Of those, about 3.38% could be considered “zombie” properties, meaning they had been abandoned. That’s up narrowly from Q2, at 3.3%, and from Q3 2024, at 3.14%.

“Vacant and zombie homes can hurt the value of surrounding properties and start a negative spiral in a local housing market,” said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM. “While we’ve seen the rate of zombie homes tick up a tiny bit this quarter, the overall rate of vacant homes and homes in the foreclosure process has remained remarkably steady.”

Investor-owned properties were more likely to be vacant in the quarter, ATTOM found. There are approximately 24.9 million investor-owned properties; 3.6% of those were vacant.