Zombie Foreclosures Still Quite Low in Q1

(Image courtesy of Brett Sayles/pexels.com)

ATTOM, Irvine, Calif., released its first-quarter 2025 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report, finding that 1.4 million residential homes in the U.S. are vacant.

That’s about 1.3% of homes across the country, or one in 76 homes. The number is flat from Q4 and up slightly from Q1 2024.

The report found that 212,268 residential properties are in the process of foreclosure in the first quarter, down 1.5% from Q4 and down 12.6% from the first quarter of 2024. Foreclosure activity has declined for the past five quarters after the surge driven by the cessation of the foreclosure moratorium in 2021.

Of those, 7,094 sit vacant as “zombie foreclosures”—essentially pre-foreclosure properties abandoned by owners. That’s down 0.2% from Q4, and down 3.3% from Q1 2024.

Only one in every 14,668 homes sits as a zombie foreclosure, an improvement from one in 14,591 in late 2024 and one in 13,905 in Q1 last year. The most recent peak was one in 11,412 in late 2023.

“You’d have to take a very long walk through most U.S. communities to come across even one zombie foreclosure–and even then, you might not find any,” said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM. “This marks a significant turnaround from the period following the Great Recession in the late 2000s, when a collapsing housing market and abandoned properties posed serious risks to many neighborhoods. The latest figures highlight one of the many benefits of the nation’s prolonged housing market boom for both homeowners and renters alike.”