While some folks wouldn’t dare set foot on a property where a murder took place, others would be happy to call it their forever home—and even pay a premium.
As proof, look no further than Santa Clara, CA, where a house was recently listed just months after news circulated that a Google engineer killed his wife inside.
Despite this home’s grim history, it ended up selling for well over asking at $2.1 million.
Most murder homes, however, tend to sit on the market and sell at a deep discount.
For example, Nicole Brown Simpson bought her Brentwood condominium for $625,000 in January 1994.
After the murders of Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman on the property, the LA home was listed for sale in 1995 for $795,000.
It sat on the market until 1996, when it was sold for $520,000. In 2006, after a remodel and a clever address change, the house changed hands again, for $1.72 million.
With the right alterations, a home can find a new lease on life, so to speak.
In 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez murdered their parents, Jose and Mary “Kitty” Menendez, in their Beverly Hills, CA, home.
The Menendez family had bought the mansion for $4 million the year prior. It’s been sold twice since the murders, including this March for $17 million.
This high price certainly seems like a success story, but forensic appraiser Orell Anderson, the president of Strategic Property Analytics, estimates that it was roughly 25% below market value.
Why most murder homes sell for a discount
According to the National Association of Realtors®, murder homes fall under a maligned category of “stigmatized properties,” which tend to be challenging to sell.
(These also include homes where suicide or violent crime occurred, or where the location is near a cemetery or neighboring murder house.)
This stigma can affect a property’s value so significantly that, in many states, home sellers are required by law to disclose whether a murder has taken place in their house, similar to disclosing past flooding or termite infestation.
Yet in other states, such as Connecticut, sellers are required to disclose that a murder happened in the house only if the buyer asks. Still other states have no requirement for such a disclosure.
“I’ve probably been involved in more murder house deals than I realized,” says Connecticut-based real estate Kate Joynt, who owns Atmosphere Real Estate Services. “Some states require the information and some don’t. If you go to closing and you don’t know, you’re pretty much screwed. Everyone is turned off by something grotesque happening on a property.”
As for how long murder houses can sit on the market, Joynt says the length of time is “directly related to the sellers’ willingness to discount it to sell. It shrinks your buyer pool, so then you have to drop the price. You have to hit that exact right price.”
Yet a price cut might not be the only downside for a murder home.
For instance, if a home is notorious for a tragic event occurring on the property, lookie-loos and true-crime buffs might be drawn to see the property and take photographs.
But in Joynt’s experience, most homebuyers have a price in mind that will turn a “murder house” into a habitable property.
“I also think there’s just a faction of people who just aren’t going to care,” Joynt says. “Some people live with practicality and are less sensitive—for the right price.”