Tracey, I would rather have e-mailed this to you, but I’m afraid I’ve lost your address. I can’t decide if this story is interesting or in poor taste, so I’ll leave it to you to decide.

1357 Northside in Berkeley just went on the market. A 1,300sf 3/1 on a large lot, at $620K it seems to be priced in line with neighborhood comps. However, the last owners were the Morrisey family. Keith Morrisey killed his wife and two daughters before turning the gun on himself in Tilden Park last June. He left a note blaming severe financial problems, and indeed, it looks like they purchased the house with a big variable rate loan.

Is it callous to wonder how this home’s history will affect its final sales price? If you think so, would you kindly just delete this comment and forget about it?

the forest street home is on a *very* busy street. we didnt go in because we couldnt find a place to park and were stuck in the traffic jam on a weekday afternoon. i didnt think i could deal with that everyday after work.

but it is a nice home. a lot of people dont drive around in berkeley and bart is just a stone’s throw away. i might be mistaken, but if i remember right..its 2/1 and in law quarters at the back.

“Is it callous to wonder how this home’s history will affect its final sales price?”

No, it’s perfectly normal, and indeed it does affect the price, by around 30% I think for murders within the home.

For what it’s worth, I believe the all the murders occurred in Tilden park, not that house.

Yeah, no one got killed in the house. Doesn’t even have to be disclosed, so I doubt it’ll hit the price too much, if at all.

Toady: I agree with Doug that it isn’t callous to think about a terrible tragedy and its association with a home. If one were even remotely superstitious one wouldn’t buy that house, even if, as Daniel points out, the killings took place elsewhere.

But rational types will have little problem disassociating themselves from the home’s history and making it their own. Let’s keep an eye on what it sells for.

Catsjellicle: the real estate agent lists Forest St as a 3/2 but I haven’t seen the configuration.

Chances are, if you buy a house more than 70ish years old, someone died in it at some point. Not murdered, necessarily of course, but died. It happens. People live, people die.

Right, the murders didn’t happen in the house, but apparently the house was part of what led Morrisey to make that terrible decision.

I’m not superstitious in any way whatsoever, but I couldn’t live there with my kids. I don’t think I’d be able to stop thinking about the little girls that had lived there before.

And no, it doesn’t have to be disclosed, but the story in The Berkeley Daily Planet is the first hit when you Google “1357 Northside, Berkeley.” The story was pretty big news here, and if you did buy it, your neighbors would certainly tell you, eventually.

Maybe that’s a larger question. How much due diligence to buyers really do on their own? Do they generally trust their agent to hand over the disclosure packet and a list of comps, or do they actually fire up Google, check Meagan’s List, pull permits, check crime stats, etc.?

Personally, I’m an obsessive researcher, but I’ve seen some sale prices that make me think most buyers are not.

Catsjellicle, I guess you’re not the one in contract on 545 Panoramic. Did you notice 1946 Marin is still available?

The Forest street home has been off and on the market for as long as I remember. I remember at one time they listed it in the high 700s.

I read that the young Morissey girls actually left some hand prints in some front yard pavement when they first moved in. It still breaks my heart to think that the handprints might still be there. What a terrible, terrible tragedy.

Um, you can’t have a 200% drop in sales…. that may be the ONLY zip (94704) with an increase in sales. Lets see, if 3 sales were made, then thats an increase from … 1. With a median price of $1,000,000 it is not too surprising that there are not a lot of sales there usually.

94709 probably also has an increase in sales - note the n/a s? If the previous sales was zero, the % increase is not computable.

To the larger question of checking disclosures, one easy + free check you can do on a house you’re considering is to see what permits are on file with the city. (We were advised to do this when we were looking and actually forgot in the chaos of escrow–we lucked out and there was nothing damning in the files, but when we finally did get around to it, we learned things like the sewer lateral had just been replaced, the new roof was done without a permit, etc.) Red flags can include a permit that was never finaled (so work might not have been completed) or extensive work with no permits on file for it. (Friends are getting stung on this one with a house they recently purchased–they knew what they were getting into since it was a foreclosed fixer and they did check in advance, but you could potentially use info like that to negotiate on price, repairs, etc.)

The seller is required to disclose if anyone has died in the house in the last 3 years. As far as unpermitted work goes any repairs that have been done should be included in the SPQ or TDS “Seller property questionnaire” and “Transfer Disclosure Statement” both California Assosciation of Realtor requiered forms. If they were done without a permit or you suspect they were done without a permit your agent should ask the other agent to ask the sellers. Planning department records like permits are public information and you can go to the city office and review them, and you should. Bear in mind older homes may have missing, incomplete or even incorect information and if you have a really old permit record good luck deciphering it. But at least you will get a permit history. Not to minimize this guys financial woes however to have killed his two children, wife and then himself he had more problems than just money. Very likely clinically depressed and possibly on anti-depressant drugs, which ironically cause suicidal thoughts.

Mrbogue: Heartbreaking, I agre.

Red: Thank you for spotting my error. I’ll fix that.

Anon: Good tip. Thank you.

Mrbogue: I agree even.

Philip, please don’t say that. This is really a critically important public health issue. It is simply false to say that “anti-depressant drugs… cause suicidal thoughts.”

Anti-depressants comprise a broad range of psychopharmaceutical agents. There is literally zero evidence to support the contention that anti-depressants of any kind cause suicidal ideation in adults. There is some anecdotal evidence that SSRIs can cause suicidal ideation in adolescents, but to date, no large-scale clinical trials have show this to be true. As a precaution, the FDA now requires a black box warning on SSRI packaging urging caution in prescribing these drugs to those under 24. Perhaps coincidentally, the suicide rate among adolescents has increased over the past three years.

In face, many hundred of studies have shown that anti-depressants of all types — SSRIs, tricyclics, MAO inhibitors — decrease suicide risk.

Toady: While there may be no clinical evidence of this and anti-depressants obviously help alot of people I know of 2 people personally who committed suicide while on anti-depressants.
They my decrease the risk in some but they clearly increase it in a few.

I’m sympathetic, but that’s not causal evidence. I have personally known three suicides in my lifetime, none of whom were on antidepressants. So by my anecdotal evidence, not being on antidepressants increases your risk of suicide.

As I see it, those listings in 94618 are all problematic:

Forest is a 2/1 with 1/1 in back on a very busy street.

Shafter also looks like a 2/1 with 1/1 in back (although I haven’t seen it) and it doesn’t have any parking.

Kales isn’t a new listing–it was listed in January at $699k. The reduction brings it down to $790/sf so that still seems too high to me! Also, no parking at this one either.

Maggie: Thank you for your insights on those three homes. It will be interesting to see what they go for since that neighborhood tends to come with a premium for its proximity to College Avenue, BART etc

Having said that, you don’t want to be too close to main streets and train lines.