Paranormal Activity – Would You Buy A House That’s Spooked?
There’s a perception that homes with a ghoulish history will sit on the market, but paranormal activity doesn't seem to scare buyers off -- as long as the ghosts are friendly.
That’s the conclusion reached by Realtor.com’s Haunted Housing Report, which reveals some surprising opinions when it comes to buying haunted houses for sale. Among the sentiments expressed, 26 percent of respondents definitely would consider purchasing a haunted house, while a further 36 percent might consider a spooky purchase -- as long as the flickering lights, ghostly footsteps and levitation aren’t too extreme.
They’d probably want a discount, though.
Ghost Stories Can Raise Value
A haunted house would have to come with a deep discount, respondents said, before they'd consider buying one. Almost one in five would-be buyers wouldn’t even look at a haunted house unless the price was reduced by 51 percent or more. On the face of it, these sentiments are pretty bad news for sellers.
In fact, the issue’s more nuanced than the statistics suggest. The presence of spooks can boost or lower a home’s value. It all depends on the buyer and how they’re planning to use the property. Someone who wants to convert a big old house into a bed-and-breakfast, for example, might relish the possibility of a spectral encounter -- as the owners of purported ax-murderer Lizzie Borden's former home have shown. The house, where Lizzie may or may not have brutally slaughtered her parents, rents as a B&B museum for guests hoping to spot the bloody ghosts of Andrew and Abby Borden wandering the dimly-lit corridors.
Adventurous buyers might also enjoy a property’s juicy past. In the Realtor.com survey, a full 12 percent of the respondents said they happily would pay a home's full market value or more if they believed a house was haunted. Credible hauntings -- those that are tied to a real or reputed historical event -- resonate with buyers, and may even be used as a marketing tool.
Still, it's a fine line to tread. A fun, Victorian-era tale of murder and intrigue tied to a house of historical significance probably has little effect on value or might bring a small premium. Darker deeds that took place in living memory have quite the opposite effect.
Buyers Avoid the Truly Macabre
Real world horrors, such as a recent murder or suicide, definitely can depress a home's value. The house where Nicole Brown Simpson was infamously murdered, for example, took two-and-a-half years to sell in a neighborhood where homes were changing hands within three months. The property eventually sold at a deep discount to a buyer who gutted the place. Today, the house is barely recognizable.
A murder scene is just one type of "psychologically stigmatized" real estate. Real or perceived, psychological taint comes from any number of sources, including suicide, death, paranormal activity, serious crime and proximity to nuclear power stations, nuclear weapons-testing sites, cemeteries and registered sex offenders. Each of these stigmas creates a risk in the minds of prospective buyers, preventing them from paying full value. Properties situated within a tenth of a mile from a convicted sex offender’s home sell for 17% less than comparable homes in the neighborhood. Anecdotally, “psychologically impacted” homes take 45% longer to sell.
For selling agents whose primary duty is to achieve the best possible sale for their client, this presents a real and immediate problem.
Do You Have to Tell the Buyer?
Sellers may be tempted to keep quiet. After all, the standard seller disclosure form has no “haunted house” box to check off. Indeed, Nevada’s disclosure laws clearly state that the seller does not have to disclose previous deaths (unless they were caused by a condition at the property, such as faulty wiring) or crimes at the property. But what about ghosts?
Generally, sellers are obligated to disclose material facts that affect a property's marketability or desirability and, as we have seen, ghostly noises and supernatural oddities certainly could affect a buyer’s willingness to buy.
This brings to mind the strange old tale of Mr and Mrs Stambovsky, who laid down a hefty deposit for a haunted Victorian mansion in Nyack, New York. Unbeknown to the Stambovskys, the creepy old house held pride of place in local folklore for the eerie things that happened there, and had even featured as part of a haunted walking tour in Reader's Digest. For whatever reason, the seller, Helen Ackley, ceased all promotion of the house as haunted before listing it and neither she, nor the seller's real estate agent, told the Stambovskys about the dark poltergeist activity taking place at the home.
The usual rule in these scenario is caveat emptor (buyer beware). The Stambovskys had the legal duty to ask pertinent questions and, if they didn't ask Ackley to disclose facts about the property that could affect its value, they had no grounds for backing out of the deal when the property's spooky reputation eventually came to light.
Mr Stambovsky, undeterred, took his haunted house case all the way to a New York appellate court, claiming fraudulent misrepresentation. In an extraordinarily ruling, the court found that the property was "as a matter of law" haunted. The fact that Ackley had verified the ghosts' existence by selling her story to the Reader's Digest prevented her from denying the existence of the poltergeists. As such, material information was deliberately hidden from the Stambovskys, who were allowed to back out of the deal.
As with every good supernatural tale, there's a final twist before the end. Once word got out that the house was "legally" haunted, a whole new bunch of intrigued buyers brought money to the table, including famous mentalist The Amazing Kreskin. A couple of years later, the ghosts reputedly told a couple of paranormal investigators that it wasn't as much fun haunting the house without Ackley, and public reports of haunting more or less ceased.
Everyone, it seems, has their perception of things -- even the ghosts.