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Zombie Foreclosures Tick Up as U.S. Vacancy Rates Hold Steady

Industry Update
August 20, 2025

Source: ATTOM

ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property data, and real estate analytics, today released its third-quarter 2025 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report showing that 1.4 million (1,385,902) residential properties, about 1.3 percent of all homes in the United States, are vacant. The national vacancy rate has been consistent for three-and-a-half years as the nation has experienced a high-demand housing market.

The report analyzes publicly recorded real estate data collected by ATTOM — including foreclosure status, equity and owner-occupancy status — matched against monthly updated vacancy data. (See full methodology below).

ATTOM’s analysis shows that 222,318 properties across the country were in the process of foreclosure in the third quarter of 2025. Of those pre-foreclosure homes, about 3.38 percent (7,519) were “zombie” properties, meaning they had been abandoned by their owner.  That was slightly higher than the previous quarter, when 3.30 percent of pre-foreclosure homes were considered zombies, and than the 3.14 zombie rate posted in the third quarter of 2024.

“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.”

“While there remain some markets with worryingly high rates of vacancies, as a whole it appears that the nation’s buyers are quickly filling homes that become available,” he added.

States’ zombie foreclosure numbers remain small

Quarter-over-quarter, the number of zombie properties rose in 23 states, but mostly by single-digit or small double-digit amounts. Likewise, in the 23 states and the District of Columbia where there were fewer zombie properties in the third quarter than the second quarter, the changes were relatively small. Four states had no change in the number of zombie properties.

Among states with at least 50 zombie properties, those that saw the biggest year-over-year increase in the rate of pre-foreclosure homes that were considered zombies were Colorado (up 115 percent from 27 to 58), Washington (up 114 percent from 29 to 62), Iowa (up 84 percent from 64 to 118), North Carolina (up 80 percent from 50 to 90), and Oklahoma (up 72 percent from 43 to 74).

The biggest year-over-year decreases in zombie rates among states with at least 50 zombie properties were in Georgia (down 25 percent from 85 to 64), New Jersey (down 21 percent from 230 to 181), Illinois (down 17 percent from 780 to 646), and New York (down 10 percent from 1,630 to 1,461).

Northeastern states retain lowest vacancy rates

The states with the highest vacant property rate in the third quarter of 2025 were Oklahoma (2.4 percent), Kansas (2.3 percent), Alabama (2.2 percent), Missouri (2.2 percent) and West Virginia (2.1 percent).

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

Large metro areas tend to have better zombie rates than the nation

Of the 135 large metro areas in our analysis with at least 100,000 residential properties and 100 properties in the foreclosure process in the third quarter, 57 percent (77) had zombie foreclosure rates below the national average of 3.38 percent.

The large metro areas with the largest proportions of vacant pre-foreclosure homes or ‘zombie’ homes were Wichita, KS (12.7 percent of properties in the foreclosure process are vacant); Peoria, IL (12.3 percent); Youngstown, OH (10.1 percent); Cleveland, OH (9.5 percent); and Toledo, OH (8.8 percent).

The metro areas with the smallest proportions of zombie foreclosures were Nashville, TN (0 percent of properties in the foreclosure process are vacant); Atlantic City, NJ (0.3 percent ); Provo, UT (0.4 percent); Trenton, NJ (0.6 percent); and Raleigh, NC (0.7 percent).

Investor-owned properties more likely to be zombies

Nationwide in the third quarter of 2025 there were about 24.9 million investor-owned properties, of which 3.6 percent (882,336) were vacant.

The states with the highest vacancy rates in investor-owned properties were Indiana (7.2 percent), Illinois (6.1 percent), Oklahoma (5.9 percent), Alabama (5.9 percent), and Ohio (5.8 percent).

The states with the lowest vacancy rates in investor-owned properties were New Hampshire (0.9 percent), Vermont (1 percent), Idaho (1.2 percent), Utah (1.5 percent), and North Dakota (1.5 percent).

Two thirds of large zip codes outperformed national average

Nearly two thirds of the zip codes (1,376 out of 2,164) with at least 1,000 residential properties and 25 pre-foreclosure properties in the third quarter of 2025 had zombie foreclosure rates below the national average of 3.38 percent.

The zip codes with the highest zombie foreclosure rates were 91001 in Los Angeles, CA (80.8); 61603 in Peoria, IL (40 percent); 46201 in Indianapolis, IN (35.5 percent); 33708 in Tampa, FL (34.9 percent); and 44108 in Cleveland, OH (32.2 percent).