More than a third of vacant homes in the Dayton region are languishing off the market, undermining property values and stalling efforts to revive neighborhoods in virtually every community.

A Dayton Daily News examination of new U.S. Census data shows the number of properties being held off the market more than doubled since the 2000 Census, accounting for about 23,000 properties in the eight-county region and more than 175,000 properties statewide.

The cities of Dayton, Springfield and Trotwood were the hardest hit.

More than half of the vacant housing units in Dayton were not for rent or sale when the census was taken last year, nor had they been rented or sold but not yet occupied.

That was the second to only Youngstown among Ohio’s 70 largest cities.

Dayton had 8,134 homes, or 51.9 percent, in the “other vacant” category, an increase of almost 4,900 off-the-market vacant homes since the 2000 Census. Springfield was 11th among large cities with 43.5 percent of its vacant homes off the market, and Trotwood was 16th with 41.4 percent.

Off-market homes frustrate neighbors, who are often forced to maintain the property if it gets maintained at all.

“When you’re living next to all this grass growing up and stuff like that, that makes your house look bad,” said landlord Arrie Riley, whose house on Five Oaks Boulevard is the only occupied home on his side of the street. “I can’t afford to mow all the grass out here to make it look good. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”

The homes — owned by private individuals or lenders — pose a huge challenge for cities, said Aaron Sorrell, director of planning and community development for the city of Dayton.

“The impact is both one of quality of life, of having to deal with an abandoned property next to you that no one is maintaining,” Sorrell said. “Then, of course, it’s a huge drain on our resources. We’re mowing other people’s property, and that takes away from parks and other public lands.”

In some cases, owners “have just walked away from the property,” Sorrell said. “And then others are folks that are just sitting on them waiting for the market to turn so they can sell it to, hopefully, break even or minimize their loss.”

Sorrell guessed that most of the off-the-market vacant properties are delinquent on their taxes, or soon will be. That would make them eligible for a program Montgomery County Treasurer Carolyn Rice is working to establish, in which a land bank would purchase or seize delinquent properties for sale to redevelopers.

Long-term effects

The phenomenon of off-the-market properties is evidence of the long-term effects of a housing bubble that burst years ago. The category of “other vacant” in the census excludes not only properties on the rental or sale market, but also units used for seasonal, recreational or occasional use, as well as those used for migrant workers.

“You live in an area where you know there’s a lot of vacant units out there with no signs on them or anything,” Census Bureau statistician Jeanne Woodward told a Dayton Daily News reporter. “There are a lot of units out there that people know very little about. This is not just in Ohio. If you went to the SF1 (new census) data for any area that you might want to think of being in the housing bubble, you’re going to find that same ‘other’ vacant category skyrocketing.”

Properties are held off the market for a number of reasons, census officials say, including because they’re tied up in the foreclosure process.

“A lot of these are bank-owned properties,” said Woodward, who works in the bureau’s Social and Economic Housing Statistics Division. “The owner is that entity — not somebody who inherited a house from their mother and is trying to figure out what to do with it.”

But in a down housing market — the average sales price of a home in the Dayton area last month was 8 percent below the previous June — lenders often have little incentive to move on vacant and distressed properties. Many of these homes too are tough to sell, particularly if they’ve been allowed to deteriorate or carry huge back taxes.

The sheer number of distressed properties is also contributing to the number that are held in limbo, said Doug Harnish of Market Metrics, a local consulting firm. A Dayton Daily News examination of the new census data tallied 65,804 vacant housing units for an eight-county region that included Montgomery, Clark, Preble, Butler, Greene, Darke, Miami and Warren counties. More than a third of those were not being sold or rented as of April 1, 2010.

Harnish said lenders are reluctant to hold more vacant homes when large numbers already have flooded onto the market and are selling for deep discounts.

“If the lender puts a property on the market, it’s pretty much assumed he’s going to attract bottom fishers,” Harnish said. “The real question is going to be, of the excess inventory out there, how much of it is habitable and, if it is habitable, is it even marketable?”

Mike Van Buskirk, president and chief executive of the Ohio Bankers League, said banks have an incentive to reach a deal with troubled borrowers who still are in the home. “If you work with the borrower, you may lose less,” he said.

There is some evidence of that happening, as foreclosure filings have been dropping dramatically. During the first half of 2011, Montgomery County had a 20 percent decline in foreclosure filings compared to a year ago.

But with so many properties sitting idle, the statistics come with an asterisk. While foreclosure complaints have declined, banks are canceling foreclosure auctions with greater frequency, said Montgomery County Clerk of Courts Greg Brush.

“It kind of puts things in purgatory,” he said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2393 or kmccall@DaytonDailyNews.com.