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Ever seen a specter at a showing? Ever shown a haunted house to horrified buyer clients? Ever felt the presence of the paranormal at a potential listing?
The natural cultural bridge between Halloween and real estate is (you guessed it!) ghosts, which makes sense because ghosts haunt houses — if you believe scary movies like The House on Haunted Hill, The Haunting of Bly Manor and The Shining (OK, that last one was a hotel, but still). Or if your scare needs to be delivered in lighter fare, even in movies like Casper, Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Beetlejuice, ghosts and homes go hand in hand.
Off the big screen, about 29 percent (up from 24 percent in 2022) of Americans surveyed in a new study from Real Estate Witch, Zillowtastrophes, and Estate Media, believe they’ve lived in a haunted house.
Of that number, 27 percent knew beforehand that the house was haunted and signed on the dotted line anyway. More than 1 in 3 of those buyers (36 percent) are haunted with remorse, and 55 percent say they wouldn’t do it again.
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They also feel like their homes will be harder to sell (71 percent) and take longer (64 percent) and that they will ultimately sell for less (69 percent).
Their saving grace might just be that 71 percent of Americans surveyed say they could be swayed to buy a haunted house to save money.
Half said they’re most terrified by unexpected costs, high interest rates (46 percent) and an inability to pay their mortgages (42 percent).
These same factors are scaring buyers off the market in general, which might mean taking a haunted listing or two. So, how do you prepare for the paranormal?
You can’t, but you can read other agents’ stories for fun this Halloween.
From mysteriously locked doors to paranormal parties, we’ve rounded up some spine-tingling tales from agents in the field.
Ghost stories from the field
Teri Herrera, broker, Windermere Bellevue West
I was showing a new client a waterfront property on Lake Sammamish in Bellevue, Washington. It was a two-story home with a daylight basement and a lovely lawn out to the lake. I was showing my client around the main floor of the home, chatting up the cabinets in the kitchen, when all of a sudden we started hearing a piano playing from the basement level.
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My client and I glanced at each other thinking that was a bit strange. Soon after the piano started playing, we could hear voices, men and women, laughing and talking, and we could hear the shuffling of feet dancing across the hardwood floors down below.
At that point, I walked over to the window facing the lake fully expecting to see that there must have been some sort of a party going on back there, and everybody had decided to come in. But when I looked outside, there was no evidence of anyone having been in the backyard.
I said to my client, “I definitely had an appointment. I’m surprised they forgot we were coming.” I walked over to the door leading to the lower level; I opened the door and saw a staircase with a second door at the bottom of the staircase also closed.
When I opened the door, the sound of voices and the piano music amplified. We could distinctly hear men’s and women’s voices and could almost make out conversations. I yelled down the stairs “Realtor!” but the party continued. I walked to the halfway point down the staircase, and again yelled out “REALTOR!”
