If These Walls Could Talk, Part III
By: Diane Tuman, Zillow Content Manager | August 7, 2006
Homes where gruesome events have occurred always seem to pique our curiosity as is evidenced in today’s USA Today article that highlights the news that the former Boulder, Colo., home where JonBenét Ramsey was murdered is once again for sale (USA Today photo above). It’s being listed for $1,695,000, although real estate broker Joel Ripmaster, who has listed the house during the last four sales of the property, says its true value could be higher. Also, the home’s address was changed from 755 15th St. to 749 15th St., which leads me to ask: How do you change a home’s street address? Does anyone know?
This must be the week for gruesome real estate articles since the Wall Street Journal also had an extensive article and video interview with NYC appraiser Jonathan Miller in which Miller said "right off the bat a home will lose 10-20% of its value immediately after a tragic incident such as a murder or suicide."
Another recent headline — this one from the Modesto Bee a few weeks ago — announced that the Scott and Laci Peterson home is also for sale.
So here we have two homes for sale with some dark histories attached to them, but they could be a possible steal for someone who can stomach the realities. For example, when I visited my brother in his newly purchased Philadelphia suburb home about 25 years ago, he was saying goodnight to me in the guest room when he swung the door back open and said, "By the way, the kid who had this room committed suicide in it a few years ago. Good night!" Two things I learned about my brother that night: he wasn’t deterred in buying the home where a gruesome death occurred and even in adulthood, he still delights in razzing his sister. I slept that night — remarkably — very soundly. My brother and his wife are still living in the same house, have put an addition on it, and love it. My conclusion is that there are buyers for these homes who will probably be perfectly fine as long as the events are not national headline-makers since it will be the media who drives the new owners mad; not the spirits that might exist.
- Stumble it!
- Categories: Real Estate Industry, Zillow
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Laura Vecsey on August 7, 2006 4:29 pm
For those of us who grew up on Long Island … add the house that gave us … The Amityville Horror
From the Amityville Record:
“On November 13, 1974, in the house at 112 Ocean Ave., Amityville, 24-year-old Ronald DeFeo murdered his family. DeFeo used a high-powered rifle, shot to death his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters. All six members of Ronald DeFeo’s family were killed as they slept and all, said police, were found lying in the same position, on their stomachs with their heads resting on their arms.
At his murder trial, Ronald DeFeo testified that he had killed his family because he had heard voices. “Whenever I looked around, there was no one there, so it must have been God talking to me,” he said.
On December 18, 1975, more than a year after the terrible murders, a family of five moved in. They were George and Kathy Lutz and their children Daniel, 9, Christopher, 7 and Missy 5. Twenty eight days later the family fled the house, claiming it was haunted.
Today, the home is occupied by a family that is living there in peace. The front of the home, as well as its number on Ocean Avenue, have been changed and despite the regular visits by the curious and believers in the supernatural, life along Ocean Avenue in Amityville is fairly routine. Sometimes a car will pull up in the middle of the night. A passenger will get out and cut away a piece of grass from the home. Sometimes another car will pass in the middle of a hot, summer afternoon, stop and the occupants will stare. Sometimes a deranged individual may even try to break into the home. But mostly, it is just another house in Amityville with nothing more than a horrific history.”
Now L.I. lovers of lurid real estate addresses prefer Billy Joel’s or ex-wife Christie Brinkley’s houses in the Hamptons.
Speaking of Ghosts in the Garage Attic! on August 7, 2006 4:55 pm
Type in 171 E. Lake Washington in Seattle for today’s Zestimate for the most famous house on the west bank of Lake Washington.
Courtney Love sold too soon!
BTW … Did she sell the Soho loft yet to raise that cash?
Seattle's Rain City Real Estate Guide on August 7, 2006 6:33 pm
How to List a Homicide-challenged Home?
Between Galen scaring us with stories of AOL mischief, and both the WSJ and USA Today treating us to stories of crime-infested houses (you cant just repaint over memories), Im thinking there is something fishy in the air and…
Greg Swann on August 7, 2006 8:57 pm
Postal addresses are arbitrarily assigned by the U.S. Postal Service. They can be reassigned, within limits and subject to their approval. Think of all the streets renamed for purposes of politcal pandering. Sometimes corner houses are reoriented during remodeling and, in that case, the address might be reassigned from one street to the other. Tax numbers are arbitrary, also. Homes are most properly identified by their legal description.
Jackie on August 8, 2006 8:28 am
I grew up in a house in which the previous owner had committed suicide — he had carbon monoxided himself in the garage, which we later turned into a family room. We moved there when I was 5, but I didn’t find out the former owner’s fate until I was about 12 or 13, when my parents let it slip. I guess they had been told about it by the real estate agent when they bought it — but it was such a good deal on such a nice piece of property that they didn’t care. They’re not particularly superstitious, and neither am I. The guy who killed himself there lived alone and was apparently a widower. Sad story.
lexis on November 25, 2007 1:15 pm
i wish she was still alive her dad was a bich her mom is dead and he thought he could get away with it