The latest numbers released by ATTOM Data Solutions paint a troubling picture of the American housing landscape. As of the third quarter of last year, more than 882,300 vacant homes were in the hands of investors. That figure represents approximately 63 percent of all unoccupied housing in the United States. These are not family-owned properties sitting idle while heirs dispute estates. They are part of an intentional and systemic process of consolidation by financial entities who treat homes as commodities rather than as dwellings for people. Adding to the calamity is the revelation that 222,318 properties were in active foreclosure, with roughly 7,500 of those now classified as “zombie” properties, meaning they were abandoned mid-process, often left unsecured and deteriorating in plain sight of neighborhoods struggling to keep value and dignity intact.
For Field Service Technicians, these numbers are not statistics on a page. They are lived realities. Each zombie home would have translated into work orders to board windows, cut overgrown grass, or haul away mountains of debris left behind by desperate homeowners who walked away with nothing. These technicians are the ones braving rodent-infested basements and unsafe stairwells. Yet they are paid at rates that have remained stagnant for more than a decade, while investor-owned property portfolios swell in value. The disparity between what is extracted from Labor and what is hoarded by capital could not be starker. Inspectors, for their part, are sent to document occupancy status and condition, often returning to the same house month after month with little change, their reports becoming part of a bureaucratic cycle that prioritizes paper trails over solutions.
Complicating matters further is the economic climate outside the foreclosure bubble. Tariffs have driven up the cost of basic materials that are indispensable to the field. A sheet of plywood or a set of padlocks, once negligible in cost, now eats directly into the bottom line of the small businesses that subcontract the work. Field Service Technicians cannot perform a lock change without purchasing hardware. They cannot secure a property without boarding it, and the increased prices flow through to them, not to the hedge funds or servicing companies that write the rules. Inspectors feel the pinch as well, as rising fuel costs erode the slim margins they earn driving county to county for occupancy checks that often pay less than the cost of gas.
The utilities and fuel situation compounds the crisis. Gasoline and diesel prices have spiked, creating additional pressure on Technicians and Inspectors who already cover vast geographic territories. A single rural route may require hundreds of miles behind the wheel for a day’s worth of inspections that gross less than a modest wage. There is no mileage compensation in most cases. The laborers are classified as independent contractors, a legal designation that strips them of basic labor protections while providing servicers and investors plausible deniability. When utilities are shut off at zombie properties, Technicians face new dangers in the form of frozen pipes, collapsing ceilings, and unlit hallways, all while the profits flow to absentee investors who will never step foot inside the properties they own.
Food costs rising in tandem with utilities add insult to injury. Field Service Technicians and Inspectors live in the same America where grocery bills climb higher each month. When the paycheck earned from laboring in the foreclosure industry cannot even stretch to cover family meals, the issue transcends wage complaints. It becomes a moral indictment of an industry that relies on Labor to shoulder all the risks while funneling wealth upward to investors, hedge funds, and servicing conglomerates. The very same conglomerates are reporting record profits, even as they continue to suppress the rates paid for the physical work of securing and documenting properties. To place this in perspective, one hundred dollars in the year 2000 is equivalent in purchasing power to about one hundred eighty-seven dollars and sixty cents today, an increase of eighty-seven dollars and sixty cents over twenty-five years. The dollar has averaged an inflation rate of 2.55 percent per year in that period, producing a cumulative price increase of 87.60 percent. Wages in the mortgage field services industry, however, have remained nearly frozen, meaning Labor is effectively working for half the value compared to a generation ago.
The erosion of wages in real terms is staggering when placed against this inflationary backdrop. A Field Service Technician earning $25 for a lock change in the early 2000s is often still paid $25 for the same service today. But that $25 is no longer worth the same — it buys less than half of what it did when George W. Bush was in office. Inspectors who are paid $10 or $12 per occupancy check are facing the same economic trap, driving hundreds of miles for work that nets them wages below minimum wage after accounting for fuel, insurance, and wear on their vehicles. This is not simply a wage dispute; it is an economic death spiral for the very workforce propping up the foreclosure industry. Every inflation report confirms what Labor already knows: the dollar stretches thinner each year, while the servicers and investors siphon off the difference as pure profit.
The legal implications of this imbalance are striking. Investors holding vacant homes at scale not only distort local housing markets but also directly contribute to community blight. Zombie properties drag down neighborhood values, attract crime, and burden municipalities with code enforcement expenses. Yet the firms owning these homes face little accountability. The burden is shifted downstream, where Field Service Technicians absorb liability in the form of chargebacks and unpaid invoices for alleged deficiencies in work. Inspectors face similar scrutiny, with reports rejected on technicalities while servicers pocket the fees regardless. Labor is caught in a web of impossible demands, pinned between regulatory compliance, investor expectations, and basic survival needs.
Institutional investors are also a key driver of today’s housing shortage. By holding vast numbers of homes off the market, they are creating artificial scarcity. Families looking to buy their first home are priced out, not because supply is naturally limited, but because entire neighborhoods are being warehoused as “assets” rather than opened as housing. Each unoccupied house hoarded by an investor is a house denied to a working family. This practice inflates home prices, worsens rental markets, and shifts housing from a human right to a speculative vehicle for financial engineering. In cities already facing affordability crises, the investor stockpiling of empty properties is pouring gasoline on a fire that Labor is forced to clean up, house by house, yard by yard.
Ethically, the picture grows darker still. The commodification of shelter has reached the point where vacant homes are stockpiled like barrels of oil. Each empty property represents a family displaced, a community fractured, and a workforce exploited. The systemic choice to hoard vacant properties as speculative assets, while homelessness rises and affordable housing dwindles, underscores a moral bankruptcy at the heart of the mortgage field services industry. Field Service Technicians witness firsthand the fallout as they clean out children’s toys, family photos, and medical records left behind in properties seized not for failure to pay but for failure to fit the economic calculus of investors.
In conversations with Labor, one recurring theme emerges: the sense of invisibility. Field Service Technicians and Inspectors alike note that the only time their existence is acknowledged is when a complaint is lodged or a chargeback is issued. There are no mechanisms for upward communication, no recognition of their sacrifices, and certainly no wage adjustments to reflect inflation. Meanwhile, industry conferences funded by investor capital feature cocktail hours and sponsorships by data firms profiting off the very metrics that show how deeply entrenched the crisis has become. It is the clearest illustration that the system is designed to recognize profit, not people.
The industry defenders point to cyclical downturns, to regulatory burdens, and to the complexities of global trade when questioned about stagnant wages and deteriorating conditions. Yet the simple truth remains: Labor is the foundation upon which the entire edifice rests. Field Service Technicians mow the lawns and secure the doors, Inspectors file the reports that satisfy compliance, and without them, the machinery grinds to a halt. Investors can own hundreds of thousands of properties, but without someone on the ground to keep them from collapsing, the asset value would evaporate. The refusal to adequately compensate Labor, in light of this reality, is not only shortsighted but potentially catastrophic for the long-term stability of the sector.
Looking ahead, the warning signs are clear. As more properties enter foreclosure and more investors hoard vacant homes, the workload for Field Service Technicians and Inspectors will continue to climb. Without rate adjustments to account for tariffs, fuel, utilities, food inflation, and the reality that the dollar today buys nearly half what it once did, the industry risks hollowing out its workforce. The potential for systemic collapse is not far-fetched, as labor shortages already delay order completions and drive up compliance risks for servicers. Investors may discover that their speculative holdings come with liabilities they can no longer outsource, as neighborhoods push back against blight and municipalities begin to demand accountability. The labor-first perspective is simple: without recognition, respect, and real compensation, the people holding this industry together will walk away, leaving behind not just zombie properties but an industry itself on life support.
