by Sam Wood
Inquirer Staff Writer
There's a stunning house for sale in Washington Township, a contemporary Mediterranean-style villa with clean lines and oodles of space.
The property on Saddlebrook Way is much more than just another 10-year-old McMansion. For starters, there's a five-foot palm tree out front - unusual enough for South Jersey - and room to park three cars. The online listing points out four large bedrooms, two full baths and a spacious kitchen.
One thing not mentioned: the previous owner, Juan Cuevas, 36, a Philadelphia auto-parts shop owner, was bludgeoned to death Jan. 21 in the master bedroom by four home invaders who had locked the victim's three children in an upstairs bathroom. The case remains open.
Real estate agents call such listings "stigmatized" or "psychologically impacted" properties. Traditionally, they have sold at a deep discount.
But during the recent overheated real estate market even stigmatized properties have sold at the asking price. And, surprisingly, some have sold at a premium.
In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, a seller is under no obligation to divulge a home's bloody history to a prospective buyer - unless specifically asked. The laws of both states only require that the seller disclose material defects with the property.
There's a reason for that, said one real estate attorney.
"We don't have laws that require hospitals to disclose the number of patients who have died in each bed," said Jim Goldsmith, a Harrisburg attorney and counsel to the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors.
"Unless a suicide or murder was motivated by the leaks in the basement or the sewer backing up, it doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the real estate."
On Saddlebrook Way, a crime-scene clean-up crew erased all the traces of the slaying. The listing agent for the house declines to discuss the events that took place inside the house.
The dwelling is not going for a bargain price. At $374,900, it is within range of four comparable properties for sale in the Colt's Neck development.
Once upon a time, a particularly bloody crime would knock down the value of a home.
The General Wayne Inn, in Merion, Montgomery County, for example, sat empty for years after the 1996 murder of co-owner James Webb by his partner Guy Sileo and a string of subsequent business failures. In 2003, the Colonial-era inn, which some claim is haunted by ghosts who predate the killing, sold for $650,000, more than a third less than the $1 million its previous owner paid for it.
The San Diego villa where 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in 1997 sold for $668,000 in 1999, less than half of the $1.6 million asking price. The new owner tore it down.
Randall Bell, the California real estate appraiser who assessed the Heaven's Gate estate, said a well-publicized crime can decrease the value of a house by 15 to 25 percent.
Bell should know. He also appraised the Beverly Hills mansion in which brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents, Nicole Brown Simpson's Brentwood condominium, and the Boulder, Colo., home in which JonBenet Ramsey was found slain.
"Usually it can take between three to seven years for things to cool off and return to normal," Bell said. "But there are exceptions."
Some of those exceptions appear to be in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
In Burlington County, a townhouse in the Birchfield section of Mount Laurel recently was listed at $244,900. This is where dentist Dennis King shot his wife, Sharon, dead in March 2005 and several months later took his own life in the adjacent garage. The property will not be discounted, said Tony Cavalino of Long & Foster, agent for the property.
The nondescript Cherry Hill home where two hit men hired by Rabbi Fred Neulander killed his wife, Carol, in 1994 sold for more than the asking price when it was sold in 2004.
"I thought it would be mildly tough to turn over," said Bob Harvey, of Century 21-Alliance who sold the house. "We actually got into a bidding war over it."
Later this month, the 300-year old General Wayne Inn will reopen as a combination synagogue, kosher restaurant and Chabad-Lubavich outreach center.
Rabbi Shraga Sherman, director of Chabad MainLine who is spearheading the project, said he had no qualms about the property.
"It was not a hard sell," Sherman said. "The Hasidic approach is that you dispel darkness by adding light. We are going to be filling the building with spirituality, and values, all the good things of life."
In Magnolia last week, Dmytro Lakota, 31, knelt on the concrete floor of his garage refinishing two doors at the modest bungalow he and his expectant wife call home on the 600 block of Brooke Avenue.
Lakota said he prefers not to think about what happened inside the house nearly three years ago. In July 2003, the previous owner Steven Wasserman, 44, beat his ex-girlfriend to death with a baseball bat, smothered his 10-year-old daughter with a pillow, and took his 8-year-old son into the garage to suffocate with him from the exhaust of his Chevy Blazer.
Lakota said he was well aware of what happened - his mother-in-law, a real estate agent, sold him the house.
"I basically had the idea that it was just a home," Dakota said. "It was in a nice neighborhood and at the right price."
Dakota bought the house in 2004 and paid about $10,000 more than the asking price, he said. He was "spooked a bit" during the first week after taking occupancy, but the tragic events have receded into the background.
"We try not to talk about it," Lakota said. "It's in the past. We're going to create our own memories in this house."
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