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Would a previous owner's reputation affect your purchase decision?

5 years ago

Alleged entertainer/actress Rosie O'Donell can't sell her New Jersey home after five years of trying. Could it be her instead of the house?


How would you feel about handing over good money to someone you detested? Or just scrub, disinfect, repaint and change the toilet seats and you're good to go (in every way)?

Comments (17)

  • 5 years ago

    lyfia, right on!

    The OP is simply offensive and vile!

  • 5 years ago

    Whether I like or dislike the previous owner isn't what would turn me off. The negative would be owning So-and-so's house and getting people driving by and gawking. "Oh, look, that's where Rudy Guliani lives" even if Rudy moved out 5 years ago.

    worthy thanked sushipup1
  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    When a loanshark, enforcer, likely murderer and all round bad guy was shot dead in bed with his girlfriend 44 years ago, my immediate thought was no way I'd move into that house while some of his enemies might not realize his fate had already been determined. ( A sign outside that "Ian doesn't live here anymore?")

    Toronto detectives confer over still unsolved double homicide, 1977.

    Cold Case in a Hot Real Estate Market.

  • 5 years ago

    There’s a local topless club owner (and drug dealer) house that I see every trip to see my mom. Kinda hard to miss with the monogram designed into the stone walls surrounding it. He was carted off to jail and the house was sold, at least 25 years ago, but it’s still known as the “boob bar boss’s house”. . It’s sold, and sold, and sold, and sold. You’d think it was haunted. But no, it’s just terminally tackily built. The people who buy it have similar taste, but not the money to maintain it. People with the money to transform it don’t buy it.

    worthy thanked User
  • 5 years ago

    I honestly don't know. My answer is, "it depends." I'd have to visit the house and get a sense how I feel while I'm there.

    If it's someone I just don't like as a person, but they're not some evil criminal then chances are good that wouldn't bother me in the least. So using the "beloved" Rosie as a good example - if I liked her house and got a good feeling (and a good price), then it wouldn't deter me at all.


    worthy thanked User
  • 5 years ago

    As has been said, I'd worry more about the possibility of lookie-loos than I would care whether I liked, disliked, or even detested the owner. Except if the house was the place of something tragic; I wouldn't want to own a house that inspired memories in traumatized people, for instance.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    TV and movie homes are always a risk.

    "Home" of Walter White, Albuquerque, N.M. Owners had to fence it, after more than once having to wash pizzas off the roof.


    Be it ever so humble...

    Then there's the Schitt Creek Rose's "original" home.

  • 5 years ago

    Our last house had been built for his own family by a building contaractor who was know to be someone very difficult to work for, was quite demeaning to workers, and didn't always pay on-time. That reputation stayed with the house even tho' he no longer owned it. If we needed worked done to the house we would have a very difficult time getting a repair person out once they heard the address.

    Also, it would seem that certain sub-contractors had done dirty-little-things to the house during construction that would make problems - for him - in the future. Unfortunately it was my husband and I who had to figure out the problem... and solve it.

    Now there is a third owner, but I don't know if that Black-listed Address is still a problem.

    worthy thanked CA Kate z9
  • 5 years ago

    There is no defect that price can't fix.

    If Rosie wants to sell, all she needs to do is lower the price.


    I don't think I could buy a house where a murder occurred, even if they gave the house away.

    worthy thanked chispa
  • 5 years ago

    The previous owners of my house abused their children, starved them, and eventually buried their son in the front yard (who died in a car accident). The son was eventually dug back up and moved to the nearby cemetery that’s less than a quarter mile up the road. They all passed away and the neighbors still talk about them. I got a great deal on the house so I guess I don’t really care who lived here before.

    worthy thanked Shawna Hays
  • 5 years ago

    No, the previous owner would not deter me from putting an offer on a home I liked. Agree with Stax on OP. Pricing is more than likely the culprit with this house.


    worthy thanked nancylouise5me
  • 5 years ago

    Gosh, I don't really know -- I guess it would depend on the circumstances.

    Although, when we were house-hunting last time around I went to look at a house that had been destroyed in a fire and rebuilt (this was disclosed). I told DH about it, and he said he to ask if someone died in the fire. I asked him why he wanted to know because, frankly, I didn't want to ask the RE agent this, I felt it embarrassing to be "that person". DH he said he didn't want to live in a house that somebody died in. Turns out nobody died in the fire (yes, I did ask...), but I didn't like the house so didn't bid on it anyway.

    worthy thanked porkchop_z5b_MI
  • 5 years ago

    Good gravy Shawna!


    Rosie should have had her xyz cayman shell company buy the house to begin with. Then no problem.

    worthy thanked JJ
  • 5 years ago

    Worthy, who is Walter White, and why are people wasting pizzas on his house?

  • 5 years ago

    @artemis_ma - Walter White is a fictional character from the series “Breaking Bad”. The pizza on the roof is a reference to an episode in this series. As for wasting perfectly good pizzas, people are dumb.

  • 5 years ago

    I would definitely stalk and see who the owners are...and the neighbors for that matter. But I’m nosy.

    worthy thanked K R