Home of the Suspected East Area Rapist

Recently Joseph James Angelo was arrested outside of Sacramento and was accused of being the East Area Rapist. The East Area Rapist terrorized California in the 1970s and committed more than 50 rapes and 12 murders before disappearing more than 30 years ago. My friend Ryan Lundquist started a poll and conversation on his blog: What discount would you expect if the East Area Rapist’s house came on the market?

The results are interesting. Most respondents were in the 0-10% and 10-20% brackets. I was in the 0-10% bracket based on the one time I’ve worked on a similar problem.  Several years ago I was completing an appraisal on a house for a purchase in one of my markets and I noticed a weird note in the listing. “Blessed by a deacon.” What the heck did that mean?

I called the listing agent, a friend of mine, and asked her what she meant by that. Turns out there was a murder on the site within the past six months.  Would have been nice if she’d let me know when I scheduled the appointment that, oh, by the way, there was a murder at the subject….

I frantically called the lender to warn them that a murder had occurred at the subject in the past six months, that I would need time to analyze this new evidence, and that I needed more money for the report because of the extra due diligence. I called my mentor to get advice on how to deal with this and to see if he had any data (nope). I then searched MLS over the past 10 years but for some reason, listing agents don’t normally advertise “recent murder here” when trying to sell homes so struck out again. No one at the local Realtor meeting could remember any sales of homes after a murder or similar circumstance either. One of my comparables, however, had a death by natural causes within six months of date of sale.

So after a bunch of due diligence, I had jack squat for data. I took a step back. This was an entry tier home at a time where inventory was low in a relatively safe neighborhood where the murder was unlikely to occur again. Three full-price offers were received for the subject and all three potential buyers were aware of the home’s history. Was there a discount because of the murder? My best evidence, the three full-price offers, showed little to no market reaction from the murder. I discussed my research in my report and concluded no market reaction and sent it in. The purchase closed less than a month later.

This is not the exactly same situation as if the East Area Rapist’s house was on the market. First, no reports to date suggest that crimes were committed at the accused’s house while the house I appraised was the site of a murder. Second, the murder at my subject’s property was one off with little news coverage outside of the community where it occurred.  The East Area Rapist is notoriously known throughout California, if not the US, especially for those of age at the time of his crimes. A better but not perfect model might be Dorothea Puente, the landlord in Sacramento who murdered at least seven people and buried them in the backyard. Ryan plots the sales of her duplex on his poll results post.

Tony Bizjak, the real estate writer for the Sacramento Bee, liked Ryan’s post enough to turn it into an article and quoted me for the story.

p.s. Randall Bell, PhD, MAI is the national expert on diminution in value and determining crime scene discounts. His book Real Estate Damages is highly recommended. He thinks the discount will be closer to 25% if the home of the East Area Rapist hits the market.