ATTOM, a curator of land, property, and real estate data, recently released its second quarter “2023 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report” showing that 1.3 million (1,285,633) residential properties in the United States are vacant. That figure represents 1.3 percent, or one in 79 homes, across the nation.
The report analyzes publicly recorded real estate data collected by ATTOM, including foreclosure, equity, and owner-occupancy status, matched against monthly updated vacancy data.
The report also reveals that 311,508 residential properties in the U.S. are in the process of foreclosure in the second quarter of this year, up 4.3 percent from the first quarter and up 20.2 percent from a year ago.
A growing number of homeowners have faced possible foreclosure since a nationwide moratorium on lenders pursuing delinquent homeowners, imposed after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, was lifted in the middle of 2021, according to ATTOM.
Among those pre-foreclosure properties, 8,752 sit vacant as zombie foreclosures (pre-foreclosure properties abandoned by owners). That figure is up 7.5 percent from the prior quarter and up 15.6 percent from a year ago. The count of zombie properties has grown in each of the last five quarters, dating back to early in 2022.
Still, ATTOM disclosed, the number of zombie foreclosures remains historically low, with little impact on the nation’s total stock of 101.3 million residential properties.
“Zombie foreclosures keep inching up as lenders pursue more delinquent homeowners in courts around the country. All indications are that the number of zombie properties will keep going up slowly, given that foreclosures are up,” Rob Barber, ATTOM CEO, said in the report. “But abandoned properties are still nothing more than a dot on the radar screen among the majority of neighborhoods. We are still a long way from the fallout after the Great Recession of the late 2000s, when this was a very real issue in many areas around the U.S.”
The lack of zombie foreclosures throughout most of the country continues to stand out as one of the most significant effects of the U.S. housing market boom that more than doubled the national median home value from 2012 to 2022.
A total of 8,752 residential properties facing possible foreclosure have been vacated by their owners nationwide in the second quarter, up from 8,141 in the first quarter and from 7,569 in the second quarter of 2022. The number of zombie properties has grown quarterly in 29 states and annually in 36.
The highest zombie-foreclosure rates in U.S. counties with at least 500 properties in the foreclosure process during the second quarter are in Peoria County, Ill. (11.7 percent zombie foreclosures); Broome County (Binghamton), N.Y. (11.6 percent); Baltimore County, Md. (11.2 percent); Lake County, Ill. (outside Chicago) (9.9 percent) and Marion County (Indianapolis), Ind. (8.5 percent).
Among ZIP codes with at least 1,000 residential properties, 44 of the 50 with the largest portions of overall homes in zombie status are in New York, Ohio and Illinois, as well as seven in Cleveland. The biggest ratios are in ZIP codes 10993 in Rockland County (West Haverstraw), N.Y. (one in 191 homes); 44112 in Cleveland (one in 213); 13754 in Broome County (Deposit), N.Y. (one in 239); 44108 in Cleveland (one in 255) and 73554 in Greer County (Mangum), Okla. (one in 259).