ATTOM: Zombie Foreclosures Rise in Q2, Vacant Properties Flat

(Image courtesy of Kelly/pexels.com)

ATTOM, Irvine, Calif., released its Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure report for Q2, finding that nearly 1.4 million homes throughout the U.S. are vacant. That’s about 1.3% of residential properties, and flat from both Q1 2026 and Q2 2025.

The states with the highest residential property vacancy rates were Oklahoma, at 2.4%, Kansas, at 2.4%, Alabama, at 2.2%, West Virginia, at 2.1% and Missouri, at 2.1%.

The states with the lowest vacancy rates were New Hampshire, at 0.3%, Vermont, at 0.4%, New Jersey, at 0.5%, Connecticut, at 0.5%, and Idaho, at 0.6%.

Properties owned by institutional investors were more than twice as likely to be vacant as residential properties overall. There are 25.1 million institutional investor-owned homes; 890,135, or 3.5%, are vacant. The highest rates are in Indiana, at 7.1%, Illinois, at 6.2%, Kansas, at 6%, Oklahoma, at 6%, and Alabama, at 6%.

There were 245,376 properties moving through the foreclosure process in the second quarter. Of those, 3.4%–or 8,312 properties–were “zombies.” That means that the owners had abandoned them at some point in the foreclosure process. That rate is up slightly from 3.3% in Q1 and in Q2 2025.

“The increase in zombie foreclosures across most states may reflect a foreclosure market that is slowly returning to more normalized levels,” said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM. “At the same time, overall vacancy rates remain relatively steady nationwide, while zombie foreclosures still represent only a small share of homes in the foreclosure process.”

Looking at states with at least 100 zombie properties, the largest quarter-over-quarter increases were in Georgia, up 98% to 101 properties, North Carolina, up 67.2% to 102 properties, Indiana, up 42% to 294 properties, Iowa, up 35.5% to 126 zombies, and South Carolina, up 15.4% to 150 zombies.