North Carolina Sees Surge In Zombie Foreclosures

North Carolina was named as one of the 16 states with the year-over-year increase in “Zombie Foreclosures.”

Zombie foreclosure is a term used when the homeowner, who is in financial distress leaves the property before the bank completes the foreclosure process. The number of zombie foreclosures in different places across the country continue to grow even though it’s dropping nationally.

New Jersey tops the list of 16 states in the third quarter where a surged of zombie foreclosure numbers were noticed with a 75 percent year-over-year increase, followed by North Carolina (65 percent), Oklahoma (37 percent), and New York (30 percent) and Alabama (29 percent).

New York metro area garners the top spot of the most zombie foreclosures with 13,366 in the third quarter. This is followed by Miami (9,869), Tampa (7,509), Chicago (7,326), Philadelphia (5,405) and Orlando (3,732).

According to RealtyTrac, there were 117,300 owner-vacated foreclosures nationwide in the third quarter, which is down 23 percent from the same period in 2013. They currently account for 18 percent of the total properties in foreclosure. Such properties will either be sold through a short sale, a foreclosure auction or a bank-owned sale.

Out of all the metros with a 200,000 population, 28 percent or 60 cities saw a increase in zombie foreclosures.

RealtyTrac’s Vice President Daren Blomquist said that lengthy foreclosure timelines make a “zombie foreclosure breeding ground”. “As we see a backlog of delayed distress finally hit the foreclosure pipeline in some of those markets, the problem is coming more to light,” he said.

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