Zombie foreclosures, abandoned homes haunt region

Clearwater, St. Petersburg and some other nearby towns have a zombie problem. Not The Walking Dead kind, but the foreclosure kind.

That’s because Pinellas County, according to a report from real estate analytics firm Attom Data Solutions, had the fourth-highest rate of so-called zombie foreclosures among large counties nationwide in the second fiscal quarter. Out of all its foreclosures, Pinellas has an 11.3% rate of zombies — properties in foreclosure but abandoned. Ahead of Pinellas are counties covering Cleveland, Binghamton, New York and Baltimore. The report analyzed 421 counties with at least 50,000 residential properties and 500 properties in foreclosure.