The share of homes vacant and for sale rose in the fourth quarter as banks seized property from borrowers who defaulted on mortgages.
The homeowner vacancy rate rose to 2.7 percent from 2.6 percent in the third quarter, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report Tuesday. There were 2.09 million empty properties on the market, up from 1.99 million, according to the report.
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The vacancy rate gained even as the number of properties listed with brokers declined because the survey includes bank-owned homes for sale without a Realtor. Foreclosures probably will reach 3 million this year, surpassing the record of 2.82 million in 2009, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc.
“The vacancy rate captures all the properties that are being held off the market by banks, so it shows how much excess inventory there really is,” said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.
Almost 4.5 percent of mortgaged U.S. homes were in foreclosure during the third quarter, the highest rate in the 37 years of tracking the data, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Nov. 19. About one in every 10 mortgages was at least one payment overdue in the same period, the Washington-based trade group reported.
