62 Percent of Americans Would Consider Buying a Haunted Home

[Gingersnap]

Leslie Piper consumer housing specialist
Posted: 10/21/2013 8:57 am

62 Percent of Americans Would Consider Buying a Haunted Home [INFOGRAPHIC]

With Halloween on the horizon, October is the time of year when we hear the chitter-chatter surrounding the notion of ghosts and goblins. The intrigue of haunted houses, vampires and the unsolved mystery of the afterlife are on the forefront of mortals' minds. Did a door mysteriously slam or did a ghost appear outside your window?

Realtor.com ran a survey on realtor.com where it explored consumer sentiments around their perceptions of "haunted" real estate. Of the survey's nearly 1,400 respondents, 26 percent indicated that they would be open to purchasing a haunted home and 36 percent shared that they might consider a haunted home purchase. When we combine those percentages, nearly 62 percent would contemplate buying a haunted home! Thirty-eight percent said no way to purchasing a spooky home. Though buyers may be reluctant to purchasing a home that is haunted, the novelty of living in a haunted home does appeal to some.

Our survey also found that a staggering 35 percent of respondents believe they have lived in a haunted home and nearly 51 percent have heard of someone else's haunted home experience. Seventy-five percent of the potential home buyers open to purchasing a spooky home would be scared off if they saw levitating objects on a property and 63 percent admitted that they would be dissuaded by ghost sightings.

As a seasoned realtor and consumer housing specialist for realtor.com, I have my fair share of stories about properties rumored to being haunted. Realtor.com's survey found that 61 percent of respondents thought a cemetery on the property may be an indication that a home is haunted. Fifty percent believe that homes that are older than 100 years old could be haunted. With the many battles won and lost across the United States, 43 percent felt that homes in close proximity to a battlefield could be cursed.

The mystery still remains as to if the legend of a haunted house is a fact or fable. This Halloween season keep your eyes and ears open and if you sense any paranormal activity (or a not so friendly ghost) in your home or neighborhood hire a ghostbuster, ghost hunter, phantom fighter or median to seek them out and help them find their way out of purgatory and move onto a happier place... BOO!!!


Would you buy a haunted house?


HuffPo

[Adam]

Years ago, looking at houses, we were in an empty house with our real estate agent, Trish, and there was a door that "coasts." So we joked about the place being haunted and maybe we could knock down the price some. Trish, ever the jokester, got a very concerned look on her face and said, in full seriousness, "no, haunted costs extra."


I don't care if the place is haunted, so long as they clean up after themselves and maybe wash the dishes or mow the yard once in a while.

[Gingersnap]

I've always lived in old houses so I'm sure somebody died there. I don't know that I would buy a house with a big reputation for being haunted.

[scott]

There are haunted houses and there are haunted people.

I'd never live in a haunted house (or on haunted land) and I don't want to be around haunted people. Whatever forces exist to make those anomalies happen, they are unpleasant.

[Adam]

I've always lived in old houses so I'm sure somebody died there. I don't know that I would buy a house with a big reputation for being haunted.

From a purely practical standpoint, I don't think I would want to, either. I'm a relatively quiet person, so I wouldn't want to have to deal with 10,000 tourists cruising by or knocking on the door if I lived in the Amityville Horor house or whatever, either.

Personally, I don't really buy into the whole "haunting" thing anyway, at least not as it is portrayed in movies and TV.

There's a soul rattling around somewhere? Fine. Ain't shit I can do about it. You do your thing and I'll do mine. Apparitions that can somehow "do" things? Well, good luck with that, but OK. The same thing applies. And who's to say that any of us are not on the burial ground of something. There is literally not a single square inch of earth on this planet that is not the death place of some mammal. Oil gets produced from dead dinosaurs. So why aren't pterodactyls and T-Rexes and whatnot haunting pretty much everyone in Texas? Half the oil in the Bakken Shelf comes from dead cro-magnons, so why aren't there tons of cavemen haunting people who live in North Dakota?

It just doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. Do I believe in a soul? Do I believe that human beings have an afterlife? Yep. God tells me so, amongst other things. Do I think that there are exceptionally infrequent occurrences of things that can't be reasonably explained that involve "ghosts?" Yeah. Sure. At some point it's always easier to just chalk up the answer to something inexplicable, particularly if you choose not to bother pursuing other answers because the trouble's just not worth it.

Do I think that there's any significant case of the souls of people who have died actually "haunting" a place? Nope. Not logical. If I were somehow to die a violent death in my house tomorrow, do you think I'd hang around here? Not just no, but Hell fucking no. I'm going to drift my corpus-less ass right on down to Key West and enjoy my time in the sun. I ain't hanging around here. I can pass through doors and walls and shit. If I can do that, dammit, I'm going to go check out what the center of the earth looks like or go see what things look like on Saturn or whatever. Hey, I don't have a body any more: I'm going out, and you can't stop me. I don't care how long it will take me to get there; I have eternity to make it there, so I'll be there in plenty of time. The last damned thing on earth I'm going to do is sit around in the attic and yell at my great-grandmother's spinning wheel or something. Screw that; I'm outta here. I'm going somewhere interesting.

[Gingersnap]

As a Christian, I don't believe humans haunt anything although there might be a case for empty, repetitive "loops" that look like haunting. We don't know jack about quantum physics when it comes down to it. Who knows what happens with multidimensional overlaps?

At the same time, I don't necessarily buy the idea that humans are the only game in town. Why not other entities that can cause effects in our world?

Either way, I'm not interested in intentionally buying what amounts to a spiritual Motel 6.