Read Before Moving To Your Dream Home

What You Need to Know Before you Move into your New Dream Home

Colter Brian is a former private investigator/photographer and now a freelance writer. When he writes, he contributes to sites such as Online Searches. Some of Colter's hobbies include spending time in the outdoors and perfecting his pasta recipes for his toughest critics; namely his two children.

You’re probably familiar with the old adage; it’s too good to be true, well that expression was probably borne from the negative results of some disastrous situation.  So if something seems a little too enticing, heed caution, especially when you have seemingly found the perfect home at an outrageously low price, be careful!  Remove those cloud castle dreams fogging up your mind about how cute you are going to decorate the place and instead, ask the obvious; why?

How would you feel if you bought a house that had an ‘interesting’ past, as in a murder or suicide?  You love the extra acreage your Victorian-era dream house has to offer, stretches of uninterrupted vistas that unfurl as far as the eye can see, but what you don’t know is that under that great expanse of land (and extremely low price tag) also happens to hide horrible secrets from a serial killer’s past.

What if you found out about all this after you bought the home?

If you are in the market for some new digs, but want to make sure that your real estate doesn’t come fully furnished with a little unexpected extras, then here are a few tips to heed, so you don’t end up sharing your new home with some disturbing and frightening roommates.

•  Talk to your neighbors: If you are considering moving into a new home, get out and pound the pavement.  Once in your prospective neighborhood, get out and introduce yourself, explain that you’re interested in the old house on the corner.  Watch their body language, if their face falls when you mention the house; ask them what history they know about it.  Remember, neighbors are great sources of information.  They can let you know exactly the type of person who lived there and even if they don’t, try to pick up on their reactions when speaking of the house.   After all, wouldn’t you like to know if the house was frequented by young people, dressed in black, coming and going at odd hours or if maybe the husband and wife had numerous domestic issues, or also sold drugs in between their bouts of heated arguments?  Nosy neighbors will know and likely tell you, too.


• Online Search: Let’s say you couldn’t talk to the neighbors, because your dream home is miles from the nearest person, but this is exactly what you wanted, peace and tranquility, a little piece of the mountains that you can call home. Only it felt a little creepy when walking through the cabin and what looked pleasant and bucolic during the day, is well, appears a little more like ‘The Shining’ during the darker hours. After logging on the computer you find out a previous tenant had indeed a very questionable past and ended up ‘missing’, you begin to have second thoughts about the whole ‘cabin in the woods’ idea. Researching through a site like Online Searches can help ease those worrying thoughts, it can either confirm that there is no history attached to the house or let you know before you sign the dotted line to get yourself far away as possible.

• Mum’s the word: Don’t expect that the seller or their agent may fess up to the home’s creepy past, either.  As a matter of fact, most states don’t require that type of information in the disclosure.  In the state of California a broker must reveal information if the murder occurred within the last three years, but most don’t feel necessarily obligated to offer information on grisly events if they are common knowledge or happened many years ago, only to lose their potential commission from a broken contract.  You can also go to the local police department or library to pull up records and see if anything might come up when you start to research your new address. 

Remember, do your homework.  And listen to your gut.  If the house feels a little off, there might be a very valid reason, unless of course, you’re in the field of paranormal research.  If that’s the case, it might be a win-win on all accounts.  Just be careful  for what you wish for, what might sound initial fun and exciting might not be so much fun when you start seeing items fly around the room on their own accord. Good house (or ghost) hunting!