Roughly 1.4 million residential properties were vacant in the first quarter of this year, according to new data from ATTOM. This represents 1.3% of the homes across the nation – the same as in the fourth quarter of last year and up slightly from one year ago.
ATTOM also reported 212,268 residential properties were in the process of foreclosure in the first quarter, down by 1.5% from the fourth quarter of 2024 and down 12.6% from the first quarter last year. Foreclosure activity has decreased for five consecutive quarters.
Among those pre-foreclosure properties, 7,094 sit vacant as zombie foreclosures (pre-foreclosure properties abandoned by owners) in the first quarter, virtually the same as the previous quarter and down 3.3% year-over-year.
Currently, only one in every 14,668 homes across has been vacated due to foreclosure, an improvement from one in 14,591 in late 2024 and one in 13,905 during the first quarter of last year. The recent peak was of one in 11,412 recorded in late 2023, representing one of the lowest levels in the past five years.
“You’d have to take a very long walk through most US 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. We have every reason to believe this will continue into the foreseeable future, given high levels of equity flowing from rising home prices and historically low supplies of homes for sale that make the few abandoned properties out there more likely to be snapped up by buyers.”
