How Hard Is It To Sell A ‘Murder House’? It Depends.
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The Beverly Hills mansion where Erik and Lyle Menendez gunned down their parents sold earlier this year for a hefty $17 million — $3 million less than its asking price, but a significant trend upward from the house’s history of languishing on the market in the wake of the 1989 killings.
“Murder houses” like the Beverly Hills property where Kitty and José Menendez lived and died may not attract many buyers, but they’re a huge draw for morbid curiosity seekers. In the wake of a recent documentary and blockbuster docuseries about the murders, their former home on Elm Drive has been swarmed by true crime fans and content creators — many of them part of a massive movement to free the brothers from prison. Some just hope to catch a glimpse of the infamous house, but others are taking selfies and videos, trespassing on the property, snarling traffic, and infuriating residents of the swanky 90210 neighborhood.
The new owner appears to be making a break with its notorious past. The seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom Mediterranean-style villa is undergoing significant renovation, and a construction fence and a gated entry make it difficult to see from the street. Its interior has been completely gutted, as seen in a viral TikTok video.
There’s no playbook for how to handle what in the real estate biz is termed a “stigmatized property” — defined by the National Association of Realtors as houses that are impacted “psychologically” but not physically by a murder, suicide, alleged haunting or other negative circumstances. Some homes get a new address or large privacy shrubs. Often, sellers accept they’ll need to offer a steep discount to offload the property.
That’s what happened in 2001 when the Menendez mansion sold for $3.7 million — not much more than its selling price of $3.6 million in 1991, the Los Angeles Times reported, even though it was appraised at $4.8 million.
Lawyers for the estate’s executors complained at the time in court filings that the property was undervalued because of its “bad karma.”
“It was widely believed by the home-buying public and the real estate brokers and agents that this house had bad ‘karma,’ and was one to be avoided,” they said, according to a 1994 article by the Los Angeles Times.
But now that the brothers’ case — and potential evidence they were physically, mentally and sexually abused for years by their father — is receiving new interest and sympathy, public perception of property may also be shifting. Their relatives, celebrities and even the Los Angeles County district attorney have said they support clemency, and the attention might be helping, one real estate agent told HuffPost.
“Typically a house where a murder occurred, such as the Menendez house, would not positively impact the sale of a house. However, due to the popularity of the show and the buzz going on around the Menendez brothers, I think that this was actually ironically helpful in the sales process of this home,” Josh Flagg, star of “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles,” who specializes in selling historical homes in Southern California, told HuffPost in an email.
It was an unexpected twist for one high-profile “stigmatized” property. Here’s how six others have recovered — or attempted to — after being the scene of gruesome murders.
South Bundy Drive, Los Angeles
The bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Ronald Goldman, 25, were found slashed to death just inside the front gate of this nondescript Brentwood townhouse on June 12, 1994. Her abusive ex-husband, O.J. Simpson, was famously acquitted the next year of their murders to the shock of millions who watched the live broadcast of his sensational trial, but he was later found responsible for their deaths in civil court.
The four-bedroom, four-bathroom condo was a macabre stop for tourists, who were also drawn to the former football star’s Rockingham mansion just 2 miles away, and the Bundy Drive home didn’t find a buyer for two years after the murders. It finally sold in 1996 for $590,000, which the Orange County Register noted was $200,000 less than its asking price. It was last sold in 2006 for $1.7 million.
Its new street address — a not-uncommon practice by owners of stigmatized properties — might not have done much to deter curiosity seekers, but today, they won’t see much: Thick foliage now completely obscures its remodeled facade.
The Rockingham estate in Brentwood — which jurors visited during Simpson’s criminal trial — was sold at auction in 1997 to a bank for $2.6 million, and the money was used to pay his creditors, The New York Times reported. (Some of its contents were sold to help pay the Brown and Goldman families in the $33.5 million civil judgment against him.)
“I’m just kind of sick that someone would want to buy a house because a murderer lived in it, I just wouldn’t do it. I’m glad that O.J.’s out of there,” a neighbor told The Associated Press at the time.
The bank quickly flipped the property and resold it for $4 million months later. The new owner demolished the house and built a brand-new one on the property — and had its infamous street number changed from 360 to 380.
Cielo Drive, Los Angeles
Film director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife, actor Sharon Tate, 26, were renting the secluded 3,200-square-foot house in L.A.’s Benedict Canyon where she was viciously murdered alongside three friends by members of Charles Manson’s infamous “family” on Aug. 8, 1969. Tate was just weeks away from her due date when the Manson members broke into the house and killed her; coffee heiress Abigail Folger, 25; Folger’s boyfriend, screenwriter Voytek Frykowski, 32; and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, 35. (The killers also fatally shot Steven Parent, 18, who was visiting the home’s caretaker.)
Polanski, who was in London at the time of the murders, gave Life a gruesome tour of the crime scene shortly after he returned; the word “Pig” written in his wife’s blood was still visible on the front door.
It was a striking magazine cover. But the home’s owner, Hollywood business agent Rudolph Altobelli, then sued Polanski and Life because he claimed the magazine feature damaged the property’s resale value. Altobelli reportedly moved into the house three weeks after the murders and lived there for 25 years before selling it in 1988 for around $2 million, the L.A. Times reported.
“Full House” Jeff Franklin creator bought the property after the house was demolished in the mid-1990s and built a sprawling 21,000-square-foot mansion in its place, moving into the home in 2007, the L.A. Times reported. He listed the property in January 2022 for $88 million, with the price dropping to $49 million in June 2024 after being on and off the market, according to property records. It is currently listed as a rental property for $225,000 a month.
Waverly Drive, Los Angeles
Just one day after the gruesome murders on Cielo Drive, four members of the Manson family — two of whom were involved in the Tate murders — killed Leno LaBianca, 44, and his wife, Rosemary, 38, in another grisly home invasion. The couple lived miles away from Tate’s home in the now-trendy Los Feliz neighborhood. In an echo of the previous night, they used the victims’ blood to write “Death to Pigs” on the wall and the misspelled Beatles song title “Healter Skelter” on the refrigerator.
The LaBiancas’ Spanish-style two-bedroom home on a half-acre lot with panoramic views of downtown Los Angeles, Griffith Park and the San Gabriel Mountains was most recently sold in 2021 for nearly $1.9 million. Its street address was changed from 3301 to 3311, and looky-loos are further discouraged by the “unparalleled privacy” offered by the property’s trees and foliage, a perk described in its most recent real estate listing. The listing offers only a nod to its violent past, describing it as “one of L.A.’s most unique properties,” which might appeal to “history buffs.”
The previous homeowner was “Ghost Adventures” host Zak Bagans, who bought it for $1.9 million in 2019.
He told People magazine in 2019 that despite the house’s “very dark and gruesome history,” he was intrigued by the “mysterious and palpable” energy he felt there.
He listed it a year later for $2.2 million and eventually sold it in 2021 for about $14,000 less than he originally paid for it, according to property records.
15th Street, Boulder, Colorado
The infamous Tudor mansion in Boulder, Colorado, where 6-year-old pageant queen JonBenét Ramsey was murdered on Christmas 1996, has gone on and off the market since she was found in a windowless room in the home’s basement.
Parents John and Patsy Ramsey moved out and sold the home in 1998 for $650,000 “to investors who vowed to resell it and donate profits to the JonBenet Ramsey Children’s Foundation,” according to the Orange County Register.
The seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom house has seen an address change and renovations since the still-unsolved murder. It is currently owned by Carol Schuller Milner, the daughter of the famous televangelist Robert Schuller, and her husband, Tim. The couple purchased the home in 2004.
Carol Milner told Westword in 2019 that she had no qualms about purchasing the infamous house.
“Some people let the imagery in their brain and all that stuff to just kind of control their decisions,” she said. “But I don’t think that’s the way to live. You can’t be captive to the past, and you can’t let your brain think like that. You’ve got to tutor it and bring it under submission and bring it to something bigger than you.”
But Milner has been unsuccessful for years in selling the property, Realtor.com reported.
Most recently, it was taken off the market in March after being listed for $6.2 million, a drop from its previous listing of $7 million, according to property records.
Moselle Road, Islandton, South Carolina
The once-prominent South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was convicted last year of gunning down his wife Maggie, 52, and youngest son Paul, 22, in June 2021, near the dog kennels of the family’s 1,700-acre hunting estate Moselle in rural Islandton. Prosecutors said Murdaugh killed his family as a diversion from the impending revelation that he had stolen millions of dollars from his clients.
The property was originally listed at $3.9 million but sold weeks after his murder conviction for $2.6 million, according to a deed reviewed by a local ABC News affiliate and Realtor.com.
In October 2023, the property was split, with 21 acres that included the house going back on the market. When the 21 acres failed to sell at its $1.9 million asking price, a local business owner bought it at auction for $1 million.
The new owner, Alex Blair, gutted and built an extension to the house and razed the kennels, he told Realtor.com — all except for a door and window that contained bullet holes from the gun Murdaugh used to kill his son. But Blair’s not holding onto them as morbid keepsakes. He said he believes the disgraced lawyer is innocent and that the location of the bullet holes proves it. In spite of being found guilty, Murdaugh continues to deny killing his family and is appealing his conviction of consecutive life sentences without parole.
King Road, Moscow, Idaho
The rental house where University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were brutally stabbed to death in November 2022 became an almost instant draw for curiosity seekers as questions swirled about whether the home had been targeted. True crime content creators, journalists and media personalities filmed stand-ups with the house as a backdrop. Amid rampant speculation by TikTokers (most of their theories were debunked) and other online sleuths, Bryan Kohberger, a graduate student at a nearby university, was arrested in Pennsylvania and charged with four counts of murder. Months later, the property owner donated the King Road house to the university, which demolished the building in December 2023 during the school’s winter break.
Kohberger’s trial is currently scheduled for next summer and will likely be held in Boise.
In advance of the demolition, a spokesperson for the school told Northwestern Public Radio that the university had no immediate plans for the empty lot, only saying that it would be returned to a green space.
“While we appreciate the emotional connection some family members of the victims may have to this house,” University President Scott Green said in a statement at the time, “it is time for its removal and to allow the collective healing of our community to continue.”
