Scandalous real estate

One way of getting a good real estate deal is going after a property that's been tainted somehow by murder, sex scandals or messy divorces. They're known as "stigmatized properties" and there's an entire niche within the high-end real estate world that specializes in this stuff. The National Association of Realtors even publishes something called a "Field Guide to Dealing with Stigmatized Property" that lays out the dos and dont's. One suggestion: Enhance the home's facade by painting it or replanting shrubs and flowers. As reported by the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), there are different kinds of stigma.

Appraisers and brokers say murder -- in particular, multiple homicides and cult killings -- is by far the toughest kind of notoriety to minimize. Suicides and hauntings come next, followed by illicit sex and celebrity infidelities. When bold-face names aren't involved, hanky-panky appears to have little impact. "If real-estate values were hurt for every house where the owners were unfaithful, we'd have a fire sale out here," says Steven Gaines of East Hampton, N.Y., author of 1999's "Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons."

Not surprsingly, L.A. pops up here and there:

The four-bedroom Brentwood, Calif., home where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered in 1994 hit the market the following year with a $795,000 asking price. It sat on the market for more than two years before selling for $595,000, public records show. Meanwhile, the Beverly Hills home of Heidi Fleiss -- the "Hollywood Madame" indicted in 1993 by a Los Angeles grand jury for operating a call-girl ring out of the house -- sold in 1994 for its $1.8 million asking price. (The buyer, dental-products manufacturer Federico Pignatelli, recently had the property appraised at twice that amount.)