Maine haunted houses, as a real estate broker in Vacationland, I would suggest they are worth more.
Especially if Bangor Maine horror writer Stephen King decided the spook inhabited home would make a good movie set. King and his wife Tabitha live in a pretty neat West Broadway Maine victorian house iron gated and off the street.
Regardless if you believe in spirits, moaning ghosts, former inhabitants with clanging chains that just won’t let go and head over to the great beyond, haunted houses happen. Because imaginations create them.
And if a Maine property has a reputation spun by a story teller, we disclose it.
And the buyer may laugh going in. But if new home owners suddenly find buyers avoid it like the plague on resale, they know, were told what to expect. That a segment of the home audience gets skiddish, squeamish. It happens with Maine haunted houses.
Some people don’t believe in God, so spooks are not going to move the needle either.
Not cause the smallest stir. Because they are in control and tough as board nails, rock solid in their convictions about how things roll around them. Believing in only what they can see. Not putting stock, having any faith in what they can not.
A John Jay, a local Hodgdon Maine native create a lot of stories about a home he used to own that he said was haunted. It started with moving into it years ago and returning from Orient Maine to the south at the end of the day to find everyone he left inside suddenly outside. In the yard and lights flickering on and off. Haunted? Maybe. Poor electrical system, most assuredly. But that is where the tales of being haunted started.
If a buyer of a Maine home loses it for lack of payment of the loan, property taxes, sour grapes happens too.
This same home was a old Farmer’s Home repossession and more stories got added to the fire John Jay started. That circulated around the local grapevine. Because the former owner of the Maine home would not cite the real reason they left… lack of payments for house loan, heat, property taxes. Nasty or even friendly divorce splits can throw a wreck into home ownership in Maine too.
Easier to say it is haunted, and vacated for that reason not because they lost it in foreclosure.
When the public sees folks, buyers, sellers, renters coming and going it adds to the haunted suspicion surrounding the Maine real estate too.
I talked to a renter of this home in Maine I’ve sold a few times over the years. He claimed he threw his winter wood supply in to the cellar helter skelter. And awoke the next day to neatly stacked rows assembled in the basement. Haunted? Maybe by Casper, the friendly, helpful ghost.
This renter went on to say he went to bed several nights with party chips on the coffee table and the next morning they were gone. I asked, do you have a dog? Yes. I had one that loved chips as much as I do. Not trying to be a doubting Thomas but…..
One buyer from Rhode Island that I shared the stories with of the home he wanted to buy being haunted was not daunted. After the sale I asked if he had experiences with anything paranormal and he said one word and smiled.
Rolaids.
He could not keep them in the Hodgdon Maine home. Evidently Casper has an upset stomach. Too much acid reflex caused with his diet of whatever ghosts munch on, nibble. Besides dead bodies, young children or whatever the standard dining fare en vogue.
Haunted homes in Maine, the notoriety can increase the value just as much as it hurts the sticker price.
Depends on the Maine home buyer and how well they sleep at night. Their past experiences and if every creak, groan caused by a strong northwest, northeast gust of a northern Maine wind keeps them wide eyed and scared stiff. Looking for affordable real estate, friendly people, no traffic? Maine, neat state, a lot of story tellers spinning yarns that some swallow hook, line and sinker.
I’m Maine Broker Andrew Mooers, ME REALTOR
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com