At Palm State Mortgage Company, we are aware that you will encounter many colorful and unique vocabulary words and phrases on your way to the American Dream of home ownership. Among such words you will find the dismaying term Zombie Homes, and they are in the news again.
We are not unlocking the mysteries of Zombie Homes to frighten or depress you, but simply to make you aware, and perhaps be wary of the meaning behind the term. Unlike their mythological counterparts, these zombies eat money and dreams. They can also cannibalize entire neighborhoods.
This week, Palm State will introduce you to the financial meaning of this fearful term. In order to be considered a “zombie home,” a house has to 
meet certain requirements:
1. Zombie Homes have been placed in foreclosure proceedings.
2. Zombie Homes have been abandoned by their owners in the midst of foreclosure proceedings.
3. Without question, zombie homes have fallen into disrepair. Their landscaping has been overgrown, and their swimming pools are worse than murky. Depending on whether the home has been vacant months or years, it might have smashed windows, peeling paint, caving eaves and sagging porches.
4. The zombie homes in a community are easy to spot. They are usually the neighborhood eyesores, and there are 49,000 zombie homes in Florida. This has been recorded as “more than a third of the nation’s total, according to data from the second quarter of this year.”
Unlocking The Mysteries of Zombie Homes:
As you house-hunt, you are bound to encounter zombie homes. You might ask how this can happen to a property. Even under the best circumstances, homes in Florida are empty for about 411 days before the court can finish its proceedings.
The backlogs of Florida foreclosures courts are infamous. You probably know there are homes that have waited years for the end of their court legislation. Without sufficient care from their fleeing owners or the lender, they transform quickly into zombies.
In another scenario, the final steps of foreclosure are sometimes delayed deliberately because the lender or bank cannot, or will not budget the cost of maintaining the home and property. Experts report that 5,200 Orlando-area houses in foreclosure have been lifeless and vacant during the second quarter of 2014.
Research states that in “Orange, Seminole, Lake and Osceola counties, 22,700 houses and condos were in some stage of foreclosure during the second quarter.” Almost a fourth of them were zombies homes. Currently, Orlando is ranked sixth in the country for its zombie home population, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Is There An Epidemic of these Zombies?
Florida is not the only state with the problem of zombie homes.
In New York, for example, experts recently reported 807 deserted and “zombified” homes. There are 220 zombie homes in Queens, and 181 such houses in the Bronx. Read more about the zombie trouble in New York in the New York Post’s recent article.
Focusing again on Florida, Sarasota, “counts 425 such properties, part of a larger problem that has left 1,600 homes languishing in Southwest Florida alone.”
The good news is that this situation is being improved from coast to coast! Only a couple of years ago, experts numbered the zombie homes at 300,000! As the economy recovers, we suspect you will see fewer of these zombies.
Meanwhile, what should you do when you discover a zombie title on the perfect fixer-upper house? Palm State will answer that question, and others in our next blog, Part II of this topic. We thank you for reading the Palm State Mortgage Company Blog, and remember, enjoy your house-hunting, but beware of zombies!
