The number of zombie foreclosures — the phrase adopted to describe abandoned pre-foreclosure homes — are slowly inching upward across the country, according to a third quarter report by ATTOM.
Zombie foreclosures now represent 3.38% of all U.S. residential properties in foreclosure as of July, up slightly from Q2 and the same period a year ago.
ATTOM's Q3 2025 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure report shows 1.39 million U.S. homes, or 1.3%, are currently vacant — a rate that has stayed consistent for more than three years despite high housing demand.
Seven of the states in ATTOM's top 10 are judicial foreclosure states, which means there's a long process that banks have to go through within the judicial system in order to foreclose on a property, which can cause a backlog of pending foreclosures in the system, said Tina Tamboer, senior housing analyst for The Cromford Report. Arizona, however, is not a judicial foreclosure state.
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