Regardless of our beliefs in the supernatural, homes that are purportedly haunted have a diminished value. This results from the lack of market demand, either in terms of rental or own stay purposes. Hence, seasoned home buyers and investors know to avoid such properties.
But even then, we may never be certain when purchasing a property in the secondary market. Prior to the purchase, background information regarding the home may be limited or hard to find. And once the mistake has been made, there really is no crying over spilt milk. So what do we do now that it is under our possession?
Psychological tag
The crucial point in making good your stigmatised property is by removing the psychological tag associated with it. People simply do not like living in a place where a family has been brutally murdered.
It goes that people would have a harder time sleeping in a home that garners gossips about phantoms lurking about during the night. Since this psychological tag is intangible, it is not something we can easily remove. But where there is a will, there is a way.
Demolish it
Unless the profit outweighs the cost, demolishing is your best bet in squashing all those rumours once and for all. The act of levelling the entire building to the ground psychologically signifies the destruction of the haunted house, alongside with whatever invisible denizens it may harbour.
Once that is accomplished, leave the land empty for a few years before rebuilding on it again. Or perhaps, you can just sell the land to someone else and let them rebuild over it.
From residential to commercial
Homes are not mere shelters, but a retreat for us to find our peace and relaxation. Sleeping at night can be a problem if we are to perceive hidden creatures watching us from a crack in the closet.
The easiest way to mitigate this conundrum is by repurposing the residential building, depending on the size of land available, into a commercial lot. Office hours rarely extend into the night and shop lots are usually closed by then. Also, people don’t usually live in commercial lots.
Besides, commercial areas during the day have a higher amount of human interaction, unlike people who may be alone at home, hence the fear is mitigated.
Places of worship
If paper beats rock, then god beats ghost. One sure way of putting people’s fears to rest is by turning that stigmatised property into a temple, mosque or church. You will not make much money out of such properties, but it is an enrichment to society.
Holy man
If the property in question has a terrible reputation at being haunted, then it would be wise for you to perform a cleansing to regain the people’s confidence. However, the plan may backfire if people are unaware of the supposed haunting in the first place. Bringing in a holy man to the property will immediately raise the red flag for your neighbours, and they may assume that something is wrong.
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