Something in the real estate market just got a little less spooky this holiday season. 

Out of all residential properties in the U.S., the number of homes abandoned during the foreclosure process dropped to 3% in the last quarter, an improvement from 3.3% measured over the same time period last year. The data comes from the real estate analytics firm ATTOM’s latest Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure report.

Empty houses, known as “zombies,” are a real problem. They happen when a homeowner going through foreclosure proceedings abandons a property before the process wraps up. The name is often fitting, as zombie properties tend to show signs of neglect, delayed maintenance, and deterioration that can negatively influence the surrounding area and drag property values down along with it. 

In the last quarter, ATTOM found 269,195 properties undergoing the foreclosure process. Out of those, 8,040 or 3% qualified as “zombies,” down slightly from the same time last year. The number of homes just generally sitting vacant also dipped to 1.2% in the last quarter, an improvement from the 1.3% from the same time last year. 

Zombie properties aren’t common, and they often stem from misunderstandings about the foreclosure process. A homeowner behind on payments who receives a notice that they defaulted on their mortgage might mistakenly assume that the bank now owns their house. 

They move out, but the foreclosure process can hit any number of hitches, stalling out or even getting canceled by the bank. Without a finished foreclosure process, the homeowner who failed to pay their mortgage still officially owns the home and their name remains on the title of the house.

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