IRVINE, Calif.— ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation’s premier property database and first property data provider of Data-as-a-Service (DaaS), today released its Q4 2019 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report showing that over 1.5 million (1,527,142) U.S. single family homes and condos, representing 1.5 percent of all homes, were vacant in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The report analyzes publicly recorded real estate data collected by ATTOM Data Solutions — including foreclosure status and owner-occupancy status — matched against quarterly updated vacancy data. (See full methodology enclosed below.)
The report shows that during the fourth quarter of 2019, about 288,300 homes were in the process of foreclosure, with 8,535, or 2.96 percent sitting empty as “zombie” foreclosures. The percentage of zombie properties is down from 3.2 percent in Q3 2019 and 4.7 percent in Q3 2016, the last comparative foreclosure vacancy report.
“The fourth quarter of 2019 was a repeat of the third quarter when it came to properties abandoned by owners facing foreclosure: the scourge continued to fade. One of the most visible signs of the housing market crash during the Great Recession keeps receding into the past,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer with ATTOM Data Solutions. “While pockets of zombie foreclosures remain, neighborhoods throughout the country are confronting fewer and fewer of the empty, decaying properties that were symbolic of the fallout from the housing market crash during the recession.”
Q4 2019 Vacant Home Infographic for Top ZIPS
High-level findings from the report:
Report Methodology
ATTOM Data Solutions analyzed county tax assessor data for more than 98 million single-family homes and condos for vacancy, broken down by foreclosure status and, owner-occupancy status. Only metropolitan statistical areas with at least 100,000 single-family homes and condos and counties with at least 50,000 single-family homes and condos were included in the analysis. Vacancy data is available at https://www.attomdata.com/solutions/marketing-lists/.
About ATTOM Data Solutions
ATTOM Data Solutions provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation’s population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes and enhances the data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 9TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, marketing lists, match & append and introducing the first property data delivery solution, a cloud-based data platform that streamlines data management – Data-as-a-Service (DaaS).