Maine’s rate of zombie foreclosures — homes that are vacant prior to foreclosure — has been on the decline since last year, bucking the national rising trend after the foreclosure moratorium was lifted one year ago.
That means fewer homes are sitting empty and uncared for in neighborhoods where home prices continue to rise even though the hot housing market is showing signs of cooling in Maine and nationally.
Even though the number of pre-foreclosures rose over the past year, the percentage of those that were vacant declined. Some 5.59 percent of Maine’s 1,289 pre-foreclosure properties, or 72 homes, were vacant in the third quarter of this year. That is down about half a percentage point from the 6.13 percent, or 59, of the 953 pre-foreclosure homes during the same time last year, a report released Thursday by ATTOM Data Solutions found.
Nationally, the number of vacant pre-foreclosure homes is rising, although it still is just a small amount of the total homes. There were 7,707 zombie pre-foreclosure properties in the third quarter, or 2.85 percent of the 270,470 pre-foreclosure properties. That is up 1.8 percentage points from the prior quarter and up 2.2 percentage points from a year ago.
The vacant home numbers rose amid a continued U.S. rise in foreclosures that started after the pandemic-related moratorium on foreclosures ended, the research group’s report said.
The report analyzed publicly recorded foreclosure status, equity and owner-occupancy status matched against monthly updated vacancy data.
The report found that 270,470 residential properties in the U.S. are in the process of foreclosure in the third quarter, up 4.4 percent from the second quarter of this year and up 25.5 percent from the third quarter of 2021. That is the fourth straight quarterly increase in pre-foreclosure properties since the nationwide moratorium on lenders pursuing delinquent homeowners ended in July 2021.
Additional data from ATTOM showed that the number of vacant properties continues to decline nationally and in Maine. Here, 3,361 properties throughout the state are vacant, down from 3,508 in the third quarter of last year. That is fewer than 1 percent of the total residential properties in the state. Nationally, vacancies also are down by less than 1 percent to 1.3 million vacant properties.
“Vacancy rates should continue to be low as investors and prospective homebuyers compete for limited inventory,” Rick Sharga, executive vice president of ATOMM, said. “The number of zombie properties should continue to increase slowly as foreclosure activity climbs back from historically low levels due to government intervention.”
Fewer homes are on the market, leading to a decline in home sales, including in Maine. There were 1,691 home sales across the state in July, down more than 15 percent from the same time last year, according to data released Thursday by the Maine Association of Realtors.
The shortage of homes kept prices high, reaching a median sales price of $354,000 in July, up 12.4 percent increase over July 2021.
