Would you buy a haunted house?

Imagine you find your dream home - a Victorian beauty with a wrap-around porch, an abundance of ridiculously quaint bedrooms, several acres of forests and creeks, a brightly overgrown garden. You picture moving in and living out a movie montage of quiet candlelit dinners, cozy mornings, uncovering vintage artifacts in the attic. But then you move in, and the neighbors start telling you about how the previous owners met some horrific end, as did the owners before them…and the owners before them….and so on. And suddenly, your new life feels less like The Secret Garden and more like The Amityville Horror. You call your realtor to give him a piece of your mind and find out he didn’t know either!

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, the reality is that dark pasts can “haunt” properties in more ways than one. While some people swear they can feel “bad vibes” and witness restless spirits, others are bothered simply by the fact that the home has a bad or scary reputation in the community. All of these issues can pose problems for homeowners when they go to sell their properties, and can become big headaches for the real estate agents representing them. It can also be unnerving to buyers and new homeowners to feel like they might not be getting the full story up front.

The Washington Post recently published an article detailing the difficulties that come up in trying to sell haunted and/or notorious homes - it details the efforts of an agent trying to sell the home that was the scene of two of the Manson family’s horrific murders, as well as other agents selling homes with creepy “presences” and ghost sightings. Some of the agents swear by hiring clearers, or “energy stagers”, to rearrange the spiritual setup of the home and hopefully clear out any unsettling, mischievous, or malevolent spirits. 

While many assume that sellers are required to disclose any details like potential hauntings, gruesome crimes, or untimely deaths that occurred on a property for sale, this is not the case in most states, explains the Washington Post. California does require buyers be notified over a history of hauntings or deaths in a home; Maryland doesn’t require any such disclosures. So what can you do if these details would factor into your decision, but aren’t required disclosures? Zillow put together a helpful table delineating what, if any, of these bits of information are required to be disclosed in each state. The Washington Post also recommends prospective buyers (and curious current homeowners) check out the website DiedInHouse.com, where anyone can request “background checks” on most addresses, which would include any notorious crimes, potential reports of hauntings, untimely deaths on the property, etc. 

Of course, it’s also worth mentioning that ignorance is often bliss. If you’re not a believer in the supernatural or the power of “vibes” and “energies”, perhaps it doesn’t matter to you what happened in a home’s past; it just matters what you bring into it and build for yourself! If you are a believer, though, then this information may completely turn you off a home, or may at least make you reconsider the headache of having to befriend Casper upon move-in.