US Housing Vacancy Rates Remain Low
Vacancy rates for residential properties in the U.S. held steady at 1.3% in the first quarter of 2026, according to a report from ATTOM. The number of "zombie" foreclosures, which are vacant properties in the process of foreclosure, dropped in 28 states and Washington D.C.
- The ATTOM report analyzed a database of nearly 104.8 million residential properties, identifying almost 1.4 million as vacant. Of the 230,401 homes in the foreclosure process, 7,540 were classified as "zombie" properties. - A "zombie foreclosure" occurs when a homeowner vacates a property after a foreclosure notice but before the lender has completed the process, leaving the title legally with the original homeowner who remains responsible for taxes and upkeep. - Among metropolitan areas with at least 100,000 residential properties, the highest zombie foreclosure rates in the first quarter of 2026 were concentrated in the Midwest, with Cleveland (9.9%), Baltimore (9.3%), and St. Louis (8.6%) topping the list. - The states with the lowest overall residential vacancy rates were New Hampshire (0.3%), Vermont (0.4%), New Jersey (0.5%), and Connecticut (0.5%), while Oklahoma (2.4%), Kansas (2.3%), and Alabama (2.2%) had the highest. - Properties owned by institutional investors were more than twice as likely to be vacant as the national average, with a vacancy rate of 3.5% among the roughly 25.2 million investor-owned homes. - The current low vacancy rates are a sharp contrast to the peak seen after the 2008 housing crisis, when the homeowner vacancy rate reached 2.7% in 2009 and the number of vacant homes topped 19 million. - According to Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM, the persistent low vacancy rates are a primary reason that home prices have continued to rise despite ongoing affordability challenges.
