ATTOM Q4 Report: U.S. Home Vacancy Rate Eases to 1.2 Percent, Zombie Foreclosures Fall to 3 Percent
ATTOM, the property data and analytics firm, released its fourth-quarter 2026 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report on October 29 in Irvine, California. The share of U.S. residential properties sitting vacant eased to 1.2 percent, down from 1.3 percent in the third quarter and in the same quarter last year. The analysis covers more than 105.1 million residential properties drawn from county tax assessor records.
"Zombie" properties are homes whose owners abandoned them before the foreclosure process was completed. Of 269,195 properties in the foreclosure process in the fourth quarter, 8,040, or 3 percent, were zombies, down from 3.3 percent the prior quarter and a year earlier. Even so, zombie counts rose quarter over quarter in 29 states. Among states with at least 50 zombie properties, the largest increases were in Wisconsin (up 20.9 percent to 52), Maryland (up 19.2 percent to 180), Pennsylvania (up 17.2 percent to 252), Texas (up 15.7 percent to 192) and North Carolina (up 15.2 percent to 129). The steepest declines were in Arizona (down 34.9 percent to 56), Florida (down 19.6 percent to 2,220) and California (down 10.4 percent to 267). The highest metro zombie rates were in Baltimore, Maryland, and Youngstown, Ohio, both at 13 percent.
The highest overall vacancy rates were in Oklahoma (2.4 percent), Kansas (2.3 percent), Alabama (2.1 percent), West Virginia (2.1 percent) and Missouri (2 percent). The lowest were in New Hampshire (0.3 percent) and, at 0.4 percent each, Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut. Institutional investors held 30.6 million homes, of which 840,384, or 2.7 percent, were vacant, more than double the national rate; investor-owned vacancy was highest in Indiana at 6.5 percent.
"The fourth-quarter data showed modest declines in both vacancy and zombie foreclosure rates nationwide," said ATTOM CEO Rob Barber. "While trends vary from state to state, vacant and abandoned homes continue to represent a relatively small share of the nation's housing stock."
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美国郊区住宅区航拍（资料图）。公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / An aerial view of a U.S. suburban residential area (file photo). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
