A new website, DiedInHouse.com, allows you to type in an address from anywhere in the country, and it will inform you if anybody has died in that home.

While watching some scary movies in honor of Halloween, some of us may wonder if there are any ghosts or spirits lurking in our own homes. Now, it is possible to find out by checking online.

For a fee of $11.99 for a single search, a new website, DiedInHouse.com, allows you to type in an address from anywhere in the country, and it will inform you if anybody has died in that home.

“I’m guessing people die in their homes every day,” said Matt Farrell, president of the Chicago Association of Realtors (CAR), to FOX 32 News. “So I’m not sure that’s really a statistic that’s all that interesting,”

Is Your House Haunted?

DiedInHouse.com was created by Roy Condrey, who came up with the idea after the tenant of his South Carolina property told him his home was haunted. Condrey did research and learned that most states do not require real estate agents to inform you if anybody died inside the property you are looking at.

“It’s harder to find things like this out than you think,” he told the Houston Chronicle. “It would bother me if I knew someone died in my house.”

This seemed to be the case for Janet Miliken, who moved from California to Pennsylvania with her two children after the death of her husband. She did not realize until after purchasing her house that it was the site of a murder-suicide a year-and-a-half ago. Since her family was dealing with their own experience with death at the time, living on the site of a gruesome event did not help matters. The Houston Chronicle reported that Miliken tried to sue for fraud and misrepresentation, claiming the owners and real estate agents were hiding valuable information from her. However, the judge ruled against her, saying Pennsylvania state law does not require agents to disclose such events to buyers.

Not only would the “creepiness” factor bother homebuyers, but also the fact that on-site deaths can cause a stigma and affect the value of a property. Condrey estimates that an on-site death can lower the value by 15 or 20 percent.

“Some people don’t have a problem with knowing someone died in their home,” he said. “But when you remind them that this knowledge could affect their home values, they change their tune.”

While an on-site death may affect the decision of some potential homebuyers, not all are phased by it. Many are more concerned about what a house will become, rather than what it was in the past.

“At the end of the day the buyers are looking to see what the home could be for them and what they can do with it moving forward,
Farrell said. “And it’s not so much about who the previous owner was.”

What do you think of DiedInHouse.com? Feel free to comment below the story and let us know your thoughts and opinions on this subject.