The number of zombie properties continued to inch up in the third quarter, coinciding with an overall
A total of 8,800 residential "zombie" properties facing foreclosure are currently sitting vacant, a 0.3% increase from the prior quarter and a 13.9% increase year-over-year, a report published Thursday by real estate data provider Attom found. Missouri, Maryland and Oklahoma were among the states to see the largest jumps in zombie property numbers.
Despite this rise, which marks the sixth straight quarterly gain, it was one of the smallest recorded, representing "just a tiny fraction of the nation's total stock of 101.6 million residential properties."
The main factors keeping the number of zombie properties low are
"Zombie foreclosures again are ticking up a tiny bit this quarter, tracking along with a small rise in overall foreclosure activity around the country. That's to be expected, as a handful of homeowners who can't catch up on overdue mortgage payments just walk away from their properties," Rob Barber, CEO of Attom, said in a press release.``But the big picture remains the same. Abandoned properties pose almost none of the blight threats they brought a decade ago when far more homeowners were throwing in the towel after the Great Recession of the late 2000s."
Overall, close to 1.3 million properties are vacant in the third quarter, representing one in 79 homes across the country, a figure unchanged from the previous quarter, the vendor's report said. States with the largest vacancy rates of residential properties are Oklahoma, Kansas and West Virginia. Meanwhile, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Vermont had the smallest overall vacancy rates in the third quarter.
Residential properties in the process of foreclosure totaled 315,425, up from 1.3% from the second quarter and 16.6% compared to last year. The increase is likely linked to the lifting of foreclosure moratoriums
