HUD Articles

Vacant Zombie Properties Rising in Second Quarter Amid Jump in Foreclosure Activity

Zombie Foreclosures Up 3 Percent from First to Second Quarter of 2022as Foreclosure Activity Increases 13 Percent; Increase in Empty Properties Facing Foreclosure Marks First Gain in a Year; Zombie Properties Still Represent Just One of Every 13,200 Residential Properties in U.S. and Remain Down Annually

IRVINE, CA – June 2, 2022 — ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its second-quarter 2022 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report showing that 1.3 million (1,304,007) residential properties in the United States sit vacant. That represents 1.3 percent, or one in 76 homes, across the nation.

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). Vacancy data is available for U.S. residential properties at https://www.attomdata.com/solutions/marketing-lists/.

The report also reveals that 259,166 residential properties in the U.S. are in the process of foreclosure in the second quarter of this year, up 12.7 percent from the first quarter of 2022 and up 15.9 percent from the second quarter of 2021. This is also the third straight quarter that the count of pre-foreclosure properties has gone up since a nationwide foreclosure moratorium, imposed early during the Coronavirus pandemic, was lifted at the end of July 2021.

Among those pre-foreclosure properties, 7,569 sit vacant in the second quarter of 2022, meaning that the number of zombie-foreclosure properties went up quarterly by 2.8 percent.