If you’re looking to buy a home with ghosts roaming around the kitchen during your Halloween house hunting, you might have some competition.
Believers in the paranormal are four times more likely to buy a home with a haunted history than those who don’t believe, according to a recent survey by Clever Real Estate.
The survey asked 1,015 Americans about their supernatural beliefs and whether they would pay more or less for a haunted home.
The results also show that people take other spooky factors into consideration when deciding to purchase a home, like living near a cemetery.
“I have people who really love living next to graveyards,” said real estate broker Deborah Woodroe of Woodroe Realty in Medina, New York. “They have quiet neighbors.”
There are some cases where you could boost a home’s price if it’s haunted.
Respondents with paranormal experiences were 13 times more likely to pay more for a home if it’s haunted than those without, according to the survey’s results. Half of those who would give extra money said they would pay up to 50% more.
You can even find haunted house listings in online communities of those looking to buy or sell a home. For instance, one house hunter wanted an abode with three bathrooms and ghosts that aren’t “horribly invasive.”
Real estate agent Chelsea Phillips in Savannah, Georgia, who sells houses in the spooky-famous city, says some home buyers believe the possibility of running into a ghost adds to a house’s charm.
“It’s something funny to say about your house,” she said. “They like spirits, they like a story, they like the interesting.”
Homeowner Tony McMurtrie has been living for 13 years in a house famously known for its paranormal activity in Albion, New York. Sightings of a woman have been reported, but McMurtrie says he’s not scared because he knows it’s either the ghost of his mother or the previous owner.
“I hear so many things every night, but I’m so used to it that it doesn’t faze me,” he said.
With home prices often scary enough, spirits possibly floating around the house don’t top the list of reasons people decide not to buy, whether they believe in ghosts or not.
The survey from Clever Real Estate found that future homeowners were more willing to live in a “haunted” house than to live near a highway or a former meth lab.
There’s also a generational gap when it comes to buying scary homes. Among millennials, 24% willing to buy a “haunted house,” while only 2% of baby boomers were open to doing so. The survey attributed this gap to economic disparities. Millennials, saddled with debt and earning lower incomes, are hunting for less expensive homes and houses listed as haunted often cost less.
