About 1.4 million residential properties – or about 1.58% of all U.S. housing stock – were vacant during the third quarter, down 1.63% from the third quarter of 2016, according to a recent report from ATTOM Data Solutions.
This includes multifamily properties, as well as single-family homes.
Although the total number of vacant properties fell from a year earlier, the rate increased in 81 of the 149 (54%) metropolitan statistical areas analyzed in the report, including Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Baltimore and Phoenix.
The report also shows that the number of vacant “zombie” pre-foreclosure properties decreased 22% from a year ago to 14,312.
What’s more, the number of “zombie” pre-foreclosures was down 67% from the peak of 44,030 in the third quarter of 2013.
Vacant “zombie” pre-foreclosures are homes where the homeowner “walked away” after falling behind on mortgage payments but where the home is yet to be repossessed. They occur more frequently with homes that are “underwater,” i.e., where the value of the mortgage exceeds the market value of the property.
The number of vacant bank-owned properties (vacant homes that have been repossessed by the lender) decreased 48% from a year ago to 24,026.
“Zombie foreclosures have dwindled dramatically over the last four years as a supply-starved housing market has soaked up even some of the most highly distressed properties,” says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. “There are still pockets of the country with high zombie foreclosure rates, and high vacant property rates in general, primarily in the Rust Belt and parts of the Northeast and Southeast – driven in large part by a high share of non-owner-occupied vacant properties in those areas.
“There is evidence that the ultra-tight inventory environment in some red-hot markets is beginning to ease just a bit, with vacant property rates nudging higher in markets such as San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Denver,” Blomquist adds.
States with the highest vacancy rates were Mississippi (3%); Michigan (2.94%); Indiana (2.77%); Oklahoma (2.73%); and Alabama (2.56%).
