Part 1 of 3

Do You Need to Tell a Buyer Your House Is Haunted?

|Alejandro Rojas

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alejandro-rojas/do-you-need-to-tell-a-buyer-your-house-is-haunted_b_8435418.html/

So you want to sell your house, but it is haunted and you are worried that will dissuade potential buyers. You may be tempted not to tell them. Heck, most people don't believe in ghosts anyway, right? Believe it or not, that strategy did not work out for a seller in New York.
I am a real estate agent in Arizona and this topic actually came up in my real estate training class. The instructor, Marty Baum of the Chandler Real Estate Training Center, said you don't have to disclose a potential ghost, but you do have to disclose a haunting. Furthermore, he claimed this was a topic that has been debated at real estate conferences he has attended.
I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not. However, after I looked into it further I found out he is right.
Rules vary state by state, but as we learned in class, according to the Arizona Department of Real Estate, "Sellers are obligated by Arizona common law to disclose all known material facts about a property to the buyer."

A material fact is a piece of information important to making a decision.
So what the heck is Marty talking about when he says you don't have to disclose if your house may have a ghost?
According to Arizona law, when it comes to real estate sales and leases, a seller does not have disclose if the property is "The site of a natural death, suicide or homicide or any other crime classified as a felony."
Marty's point is that if someone dies in the house, you don't have to disclose that information. He is then applying some comedic liberty to translate that as you don't have to disclose a potential ghost.
However, a haunting could be seen as a material fact. Such was the case in a famous New York court case, commonly referred to as the Ghostbusters ruling.
The case was Stambovsky v. Ackley. In 1990, Jeffrey Stambovsky went to the courts to get out of a contract he had made on a house that he later found out was haunted. The house was a Victorian in Nyack, New York, just across the Hudson River from Sleepy Hollow.
According to a story in The New York Times, Stambovsky was buying the home for $650,000 and had put down $32,500. He found out about the house's haunted reputation and refused to close on the sale and wanted his deposit back.
The first ruling was not in his favor. However, he appealed and won. The case was settled in 1991, and according to an alleged accounting of the affair by Ackley's son-in-law, eventually a judge decided that they split the down payment.
The question is, why did the court overturn the original ruling?
In New York, they followed the caveat emptor rule. This means "buyer beware" and puts the responsibility on the buyer to get the house inspected for defects. However, the courts ruled that an inspection would not have discovered the haunting. Apparently, they do not carry around the little device with all of the lights on it that was used in the movie Ghostbusters to look for ghosts.

Part 2 of 3

Of course, the Ghostbusters ghost hunting device does not exist, and many, perhaps most, will tell you ghosts don't exist. So, how can the courts rule the house was haunted? For this justification they looked to how the home got its haunted reputation in the first place.
Although Ackley claims there were rumors of the house being haunted before she moved there, according to Lawnix, a site of legal case briefs for law students and attorneys, "Ackley had actually perpetrated the rumor by reporting various occurrences to Reader's Digest and the local press."
Lawnix explained, "In this case, Ackley deliberately publicized that her house was haunted. Having informed the public at large that the house was haunted, she owned no less a duty to the buyer. Ackley was estopped from denying the existence of ghosts and poltergeists and as a matter of law, the house was haunted."
So whether or not the house was haunted was irrelevant. That the seller believed the house was haunted and had told others about her belief was relevant. The moral of the story is if you think your house is haunted, that could be interpreted as a material fact, so it is better to let potential buyers know.
You may be reading this while you are sitting in your home listening to moaning and phantom footsteps. Hopefully, that is just your kids fooling around or a scary movie is on. It is the Halloween season after all. However, if this is a common occurrence and you believe your house is actually haunted, take heart. If you are looking to sell your haunted house, you could turn this into a marketing opportunity.
In a recent story in Realtor Magazine, a real estate agent in Omaha, Nebraska did just that. In his listing description, instead of focusing on the great backyard or the newly renovated kitchen, he focused on the house's haunted reputation.
Unfortunately, the owners took the house off of the market before it sold. They claimed the haunting had turned violent, so they had to get out quick and decided to turn the house into a rental. However, the real estate agent says his marketing strategy created a lot of interest.
Some of the paranormal experts Realtor Magazine interviewed claimed there are people that don't mind living with ghosts. According to Ackley's son-in-law, even the Ackleys didn't mind the ghosts so much. They felt the ghosts were benevolent and looked after the family.
Getting back to Marty's joke, it is a bit ironic that, at least in Arizona, you could be living in the Murder House from American Horror Story and not have to disclose the home's gruesome history, but if you suspect your house is haunted, and especially if your home has a haunted reputation, you had better disclose that.
The good news for those trying to unload a haunted house is that some people welcome a house ghost as much as they do the house pet. That means those Halloween enthusiasts, like the ones who have their cubicles decked out this week with cobwebs and tombstones, are your potential buyers.

Part 3

A Haunted House Can Be Marketing Gold | Realtor Magazine

http://realtormag.realtor.org/sales-and-marketing/feature/article/2015/10/haunted-house-can-be-marketing-gold#sf14459712/

On his website last October, Justin Redding promoted one of his picture-perfect listings, a 1,400-square-foot, three-bedroom home in Omaha, Neb. The listing description made only a brief mention of the newly renovated kitchen and large backyard and deck, which most would consider its strongest selling points. Instead, Redding focused on the home’s other attributes: apparitions, terrifying sounds, and unexplainable events.

“This is a rare, SPOOKTACULAR home … a personal favorite of local paranormal investigators,” read Redding’s ad, which detailed mysterious occurrences at the home such as footsteps in the attic, doors opening and closing on their own, and ghostly voices. (Though the home is no longer for sale, the listing still lives on Redding’s site.)

Why on earth would an agent want to purposely give buyers the impression that their listing is haunted? First off, Redding’s sellers had given their blessing to the selling tactic, and he adds that he wasn’t revealing any secrets anyway. The home, which had previously been listed but failed to sell, already had a reputation. It became a local media sensation after the Omaha chapter of PRISM, a national paranormal society, documented strange activity during several investigations.

Scary Real Estate Stories
What if the house is vacant ... but someone's home? We asked real estate professionals to tell us their creepiest experiences in the field. Read them at your own risk at our Speaking of Real Estate blog.


* More on link *

Interesting read!

And logical you have to mention a haunted house and not a homicide or something. A haunted house means there's trouble, someone having died in a house, doesn't. Not necessarily anyways. Sure as heck will affect the energy of a home, but not everyone is prone to feeling such things. Whereas entities slamming doors, making temperature drop etc. is pretty danged hard to miss!
Apart from that, dense energy caused by a death can be healed and harmonized, at least a whole lot easier than getting rid of entities, which you cannot always get rid of.
Also, if you want to sell a house 10 years after someone died there, ppl will have forgotten. But a haunted house will still be haunted and is virtually unsellable.

I studied Real Estate...(by I have a greater interest in appraisal).

It is important to know the law for your state or area, before looking to buy.

Which the links..failed to mention

In some states, the Owner, Lister, Lawyer ...must TELL potential buyers if it is suspected & others if is there any documentation. And others... Don't have to tell you anything.

And yes... There are buildings I have refused to enter, or once was enough.

there was a add for a 750,000 $ house in new york was selling for 150,000 $
i wish i would have had the money i would have moved there
very nice house , with ghosts
i dont have a problem sharing my house , unless they harm my fam or friends , then its game on : )
i have lived in many houses that i have had things i can not explain
they never harmed me , and most had a seance of humor

In some states here, they do have to tell you if there was a HOMICIDE. And some if there was a suicide.
My best advice, is to ask. But also check police & county records.

I seen huge properties, completely modernized, gourmet kitchens.. Etc. & cheap. Some on sale for 5 years, but no buyers.
Sometimes the owners, just leave & try to rent it out. The law is not a strict then. IMO.. As to what must be revealed.

I've lived in a house with entities and wasn't particularly fun. Lived in more than one house with entities actually, but that last one was serious chit :/
It's somewhat different from "living with a ghost". They can make your life utterly miserable, and that of anyone else living in the building.
Other people pick up on the negative, dense energies, often subconsciously, so it can just happen that all your friends and family start staying away because your house simply doesn't feel good.

Apart from the discomfort and unpleasant things that can be caused by entities, they can also make you physically ill. Mostly vague things that no doctor can find a cause or reason for.

Been there, done that, never again.
Wouldn't even take a haunted house if I got it for free.

I wouldn't even take a haunted house if I got it for free.

Me neither. Twice I was asked, would you buy it? Would you live here? I said. NO.
I could not in good conscious lie about it.

make it a Tourist-attraction!

i would it would be great to be in a haunted house i've been in the asylem once i had to camp there i did i heard weird noises but i didnt care me and my friend stayed all night my friend was scared he saw something but i was sleeping like a baby i love haunted places if i have a house for free and its haunted wow that will make my day

Well i love haunted places me and my friend once stayed in an abandon asylem we heard noises but i ignored it but my friend was scared he told me he saw something but i told him to go to sleep
Maybe he saw a rat or something soo i slept like a baby he was scared like a baby hahahaha that makes me laugh u know hahaha but well if i get a haunted house for free that will make my day dnt u think

Just do some smudging, apparently burning some plant will rid you of ghost's
the smoke scares them away, that is amazing .

Make the house into a crack house when the crackheads are done f#cking the sh@t out of the things haunting it boom now is a visible problem,then get rid of the crackheads easy ,and the house is now a used to be a crackhouse sounds better than a haunted house que no blaze on

just had to add in with experience and many years of study, i do believe a ghost may try to bother or what some call haunt a home, however since met and know God, through experience and knowledge, know that with God we have the power and authortity too rebuke all evil, in other words if a home is being bothered by bad spirits you may demand they be gone in name of Jesus Christ, in my life i have with my own eyes seen it work. be blessed <3

if yous believe in the spiritual world, then i hoping yous also believe in the supernatural, thee lord Jesus Christ. Our father thee God who gifted the authority to rebuke any or all evil, i have seen this first hand and he is thee only skill you need, but faith in him is needed for the task, be safe be blessed <3

shovelheadjilly,

This is an excellent example of how, in the world of human interactions, it is not what is actually TRUE which really matters, so much as it is what everyone BELIEVES is true.

Very frustrating to those of us who wish to live lives based in solid reality.

This is an excellent example of how, in the world of human interactions, it is not what is actually TRUE which really matters, so much as it is what everyone BELIEVES is true.

Very frustrating to those of us who wish to live lives based in solid reality.



Hummm... This thread is 4 months old.
Ghosts & talking about ghosts is okay.
Demons & talking about Christ is not?

What I see is a perfect example of heathenism & religious discrimination, from a liberal who isn't really liberal at all.