Things that go bump in the night don’t bother homebuyers if they scare down the price, scare up more bedrooms, or spirit them into a better neighborhood that they could not otherwise afford.
The survey, which queried more than 1,000 online respondents, revealed that 33% of them are open to living in a haunted house and another 25% would consider it. The remaining 42% said “no way.”
“Houses with ghosts or terrible histories are what we call ‘stigmatized houses,’ and they are a tough sell,” says Robb Cohen, a principal with the luxury real estate firm Engel & Völkers Boston.
“People may say they would live there, but the house has to have a lot to make up for those kinds of stories.”
A bargain makes up for a lot: 40% of the respondents said they’d overlook a spirit or two in exchange for a drop in the purchase price. Another 35% quoted a better neighborhood as a reason to overcome their fears, 32% percent said they wanted extra square footage and 29% said they would buy it if the haunted house had more bedrooms.
In fact, sharing a home with spectral residents is apparently not so unusual: The same survey indicates that 28% of respondents think that they have lived in a haunted home and 14% think that they may have. Evidence? Strange, unexplainable noises, said 58%. Another 51% said that they had creepy feelings in certain rooms, while 40% said they had seen objects move or disappear.
However, even those open to living with ghosts have limits. Forty-eight percent who agreed they’d make a haunted house home said they could tolerate cold or hot spots in their rooms. Unexplained noises in the night? Forty-five percent of respondents said, “No problem.” That feeling when the hair stands up on the back of your neck? Thirty-nine percent said they were okay if certain rooms felt strange. A mysterious shadow over the bed while you sleep? Thirty-five percent shrugged.
But, when it comes to floating tables or ghostly touches, only 20% of respondents felt comfortable.
The message to our spectral housemates: I’ll share my space, but don’t touch me.
