ATTOM, an Irvine, California-based property data and real estate analytics platform, has 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.
A “zombie” foreclosure is when a property owner abandons a home after receiving a foreclosure notice but the foreclosure process is incomplete, leaving the property in a state of limbo. The property remains the owner’s legal responsibility until the legal transfer of ownership is finalized by the lender but is neglected and often falls into disrepair.
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.
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. That was slightly higher than the previous quarter, when 3.3 percent of pre-foreclosure homes were considered zombies, and higher 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.
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).
Among metro areas, Provo had the third-lowest proportion of zombie foreclosures with just 0.4 percent, behind Nashville’s zero zombie foreclosures and Atlantic City’s 0.3 percent.
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. Utah’s 1.5 percent vacancy of investor-owned properties was fourth-best in the nation.