Haunted house Dillon Kydd for Unsplash
There’s a home near Flag Pole Hill. It’s gorgeous, spacious and close to a well loved elementary school. The owners, last time we spoke (almost ten years ago), reportedly love living there, however it took some getting used to, because the house is totally haunted, they say.
Homeowner Stephanie Canada told us that the television set sometimes turns on in the middle of the night, changes channels and refuses to power off.
A previous owner said he didn’t last long in the house, due to the frightening spirits, but Stephanie says she intended to stick it out, despite the property’s violent history.
News clipping about the 1985 murder near Flag Pole Hill.
The most notorious event in the 7800 block of Blackbird Lane took place Feb. 27, 1985, when Koby Sandovsky and Lesia Kahl, a Playboy model, were killed during a drug exchange gone bad.
A wife murdered her unfaithful husband there, Canada said she learned when researching the home’s history, and the man who built the home in 1963 committed suicide.
Many looking to buy in this sellers’ market would consider a haunted home, per a recent study by Clever, a real estate data analysis company — about 58% of Americans, they report. (Yes, it is that time of year for silly spooky surveys).
The same study revealed that about one-fourth of Americans (24%) believe they’ve already lived in a real haunted house.
Researchers revealed, 69% of Americans believe in the paranormal — down from 76% in 2021 and 70% in 2020. Believers’ conviction stems from firsthand experience, they report. About 60% of respondents say they’ve personally experienced a supernatural event.
However, about 1 in 4 respondents (26%) say they’ve experienced paranormal activity less often in the past year.
“It’s possible that as Americans return to pre-pandemic activities, they aren’t as well-positioned to observe mysterious occurrences in their homes,” the authors note.
A few other highlights from the Halloween themed real estate study (full report and methodology available here): 76% of cat owners believe in the supernatural and they are 53% more likely than non-cat owners to say they’ve lived in a haunted house.
Nearly half of Americans (47%) would rather purchase a haunted house than live in a former meth lab.
Not very surprisingly, purchasing a haunted home is the least of buyers’ worries. The scariest aspects of homeownership are unexpected costs (54%), nightmarish neighbors (44%), and an inability to pay their mortgage (39%).
In Texas, sellers are under no obligation to disclose deaths by suicide or accident in the home unless they were related to the property’s condition.
They are, however, required to disclose any murders that have occurred on the property, which is how Canada says she learned of the 1985 case.
The reasoning has little to do with ghosts hanging around but rather that a violent death, especially one that makes the news, can stigmatize a property.
The average sale price of a home in Dallas was $400,000 last month, up 6.5% since last year, says Redfin.
