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Haunted Houses: Where to Find Hollywood’s Horror Homes

The Housing Scene by by Lew Sichelman
by Lew Sichelman
The Housing Scene | October 26th, 2018

The price was recently slashed by $1 million for Bill Murray’s mansion from the comedy “Zombieland.” Owner Lee Najjar is now asking just $13.8 million for the property.

The 2009 film was a spoof of the horror genre. The film’s stars, including Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Woody Harrelson, are the last known survivors of a zombie apocalypse. It takes place all over the make-believe map. But before they wind up at the supposedly zombie-free Pacific Playland amusement park, they visit Murray’s house in Hollywood.

Only the 33,000 square-foot mansion isn’t in Hollywood. It isn’t even in California. It’s in Atlanta, sitting on two acres on West Paces Ferry Road in the ritzy Buckhead area. And with the approach of Halloween, that annual homage to ghosts and goblins, it causes one to wonder about other scary filmdom houses and their actual locations.

Places like the house in “Nightmare on Elm Street,” the 1984 slasher film by Wes Craven. It featured Johnny Depp in his movie debut, as well as Robert Englund as the razor-gloved killer, Freddy Krueger. If the three-bedroom house in the movie could talk, it would scream bloody murder. And it would tell you it’s not located in the fictional town of Springwood, Ohio, but rather on Genesee Avenue in Los Angeles.

The townhouse featured in “The Exorcist” was in Georgetown, a ritzy section in the nation’s capital. The movie about demonic possession was released in 1973, but just the thought of Linda Blair’s head turning 360 degrees still brings shivers to the spine.

The film was based on a book by William Peter Blatty, which itself was based on an actual exorcism. But the ritual didn’t take place on Prospect Street NW, where the movie was made, but rather in a long-lost residence in the nearby Maryland suburb of Mount Rainier.

In the video for “Thriller” -- often called the greatest music video of all time -- Michael Jackson and his ghoulish friends break into song and dance, then he chases his date into a Victorian house. The video makes no mention of its location, but listen up, superfans: The house is on Carroll Avenue in Los Angeles.

Not far away in Altadena stands the Omega Beta Zeta House from “Scream 2,” another Wes Craven slasher. The 6,500-square-foot house on East Crary Street sits on 1.5 acres and has seven bedrooms and four full bathrooms.

Across the continent, folks who remember “Rosemary’s Baby,” Roman Polanski’s 1968 horror film, can find Rosemary Woodhouse’s apartment building on West 72nd Street in New York City. The building, called the Dakota, is probably better remembered as the place where Beatle John Lennon lived, and was killed.

“Halloween,” a 1978 film directed by John Carpenter and featuring Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut, was set in the fictional Midwestern town of Haddonfield, Illinois. But white-masked murderer Michael Myers actually shot scenes in a five-bedroom house on North Orange Grove Avenue in Los Angeles.

In the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (adapted from the 1992 movie of the same name), high-schooler Buffy Summers must defend the world against vampires. Exterior shots of her house showed a palm-studded four-bedroom house on Cota Avenue in Torrance, California, just down the street from Torrance High -- aka Buffy’s school, Sunnydale.

The eerie-looking “witch’s house” in the 1957 film “The Undead” was built during the 1920s on a studio lot as a dressing room and office, before being moved to Walden Drive in Beverly Hills to be used as a private residence. A longtime resident used to dress as a witch to hand out candy every Halloween.

The place featured in the 1959 B-movie “House on Haunted Hill” might just be the only house of any architectural significance to ever be featured in a horror film. In the movie, Vincent Price pays guests to stay one night in a house where the ceiling drips blood. But the only thing that really drips from this place is history: The exterior shots were of Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1924 masterpiece Ennis House in L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood.

In “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” a psychological thriller starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, the five-bedroom house used for exterior shots can be found on South McCadden Place in Los Angeles. The final scene on the beach, however, was filmed in Malibu.

“Dead Again,” a 1991 reincarnation film, might come back to haunt its actors, among them Emma Thompson and Andy Garcia, as well as its filming location on Broadview Terrace in L.A.

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Local Expertise: Agents ‘Say One Thing, Do Another’

The Housing Scene by by Lew Sichelman
by Lew Sichelman
The Housing Scene | October 19th, 2018

Some realty professionals speak out of both sides of their mouths, according to new research. A recent study found that some agents, teams and brokers profess to being highly knowledgeable about their local markets, but cast a far wider net when marketing themselves.

“The headline for the survey could very well read, ‘Agents, teams and brokers say one thing, do another,’” says the WAV Group, a consulting firm, in a release. WAV Group conducted the study for zavvie, a Colorado-based technology firm.

In that zavvie sells an online marketing platform that allows agents to dominate their local areas, the study’s results could be considered self-serving. But Kevin Hawkins, president of WAV’s communications affiliate, says the data was not manipulated in any way by, or for, zavvie.

“They sponsored the survey and paid for it, but they did not have anything to do with” the results, he says.

Besides, Hawkins adds, numerous companies offer hyperlocal marketing programs, not just zavvie. The survey serves them all, not just WAV’s client.

As Hawkins sees it, the hyperlocal movement has taken over a number of businesses already -- the farm-to-table crusade in the restaurant field, for example -- and many consumers are enthusiastic about the trend. Yet real estate is lagging.

“Real estate has always been about ‘local, local, local,’ but agents tend to cast a wider net,” Hawkins says. “You can’t be an ‘expert’ that far and wide. The ideal market in the real estate world is about 3,000 houses. That’s what’s needed to create a sustainable, ongoing business.”

In what is said to be the first-ever survey of its kind, researchers found that a nearly unanimous 95 percent of agents, teams, broker-owners and realty executives say local market knowledge is either “very important” or “extremely important” to their clients. But the poll found a “great disconnect” between that sentiment and what realty pros are actually practicing in their marketing activities.

Says zavvie CEO and co-founder Lane Hornung: “The survey clearly shows their marketing efforts are not consistent with hyperlocal being an actual priority.”

When asked how many respondents actually specialize in neighborhoods, just 12 percent -- about 1 in 8 -- raised their hands.

Hornung suggested that agents and teams who want to go local should focus their marketing activities specifically on a neighborhood or group of neighborhoods, which the zavvie exec defined as about 10,000 people -- or roughly, as Hawkins mentioned, 3,000 houses.

“In fact, the study found that most real estate professionals are doing the exact opposite,” says Hornung. “They are casting the largest net, trying to draw their marketing circle as broad as possible.”

The survey was returned by some 425 respondents, including 350 practicing professionals. Agents accounted for more than half the responses, while broker-owners and company executives made up about a third.

More than 3 in 5 agents and teams reported specializing in a large regional or metro area, a finding that Stefan Peterson, zavvie’s COO and other co-founder, called an “oxymoron.”

“You can’t specialize in a city or a town. It’s just too big of an area geographically (for one person) to be a ‘go-to expert’ that knows every single home in that size of a market,” he said. “Yet that’s what folks are claiming.”

More evidence of this behavioral disconnect between what agents say and what they actually do: Few agents and teams reported using marketing tools that let them share their local expertise -- tools such as a blog (7 percent used one), a neighborhood website (15 percent) or Nextdoor, a private social network serving local communities (15 percent).

“All of these are core tools of a typical hyperlocal agent’s marketing system,” said Peterson.

At the same time, 38 percent said they were “extremely knowledgeable” and 42 percent more were “very knowledgeable” about local goings-on and changes that impact the real estate market.

Peterson says that this finding begs the question: “If all of these agents, teams and brokerages have all this local knowledge, how is anyone going to know it if they are not sharing it?”

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After You’ve Been Burglarized

The Housing Scene by by Lew Sichelman
by Lew Sichelman
The Housing Scene | October 12th, 2018

According to the FBI, the number of burglaries committed in the first half of 2017 decreased by 6.1 percent from the same period of 2016 -- and by 10.6 percent in metropolitan areas specifically.

But despite the decline, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reports that 3.3 million Americans were victims of household robberies in 2016, the last year for which stats are available. That works out to 24.7 thefts per 1,000 households.

Much has been written about how to protect yourself and your home against break-ins. Whatever precautions you take, if you happen to be victimized, what you do after the fact is just as important -- especially for your mental well-being.

Surprisingly, only half of burglary victims notify police that they’ve been robbed. But you should.

You need to call the cops right away, if only because the perpetrator might still be on the premises: BJS reports that 7 percent of all home burglaries involve violence against household members. So consider calling the authorities from your car.

The police should give you a case number, which you’ll need for your next phone call: to file a claim with your insurance company. A police report and investigation will help bolster your insurance claim, so let the police do their jobs. Don’t touch anything, but do take pictures of the damage and places from which things were stolen, to document the losses.

Next, the experts say, vacate the place until it is no longer a crime scene. Check yourself into a hotel and try to chill. Of course, relaxing is easier said than done. If you have trouble calming yourself down, try talking with friends, family members or a clergy member. Don’t be afraid to lean on others for emotional support and comfort.

If your anxiety persists, consider seeing a professional therapist who can help you move along with your life. Maybe you can find a group of other robbery victims who meet with a social worker to talk through their anxieties and fears.

Once everything settles down, return home and immediately change every lock in the house: windows, doors, even the locks on your garage doors. It might be a good idea to have a different lockset and key for each door, but ask your locksmith or a hardware store specialist for advice.

Now, it’s time to consider how to better protect your home, valuables and family from another theft. Once a burglar has successfully broken into a home, they sometimes return for another shot.

The National Crime Prevention Council has an entire suite of hints to help you review your home security and identify any shortcomings: Visit ncpc.org/resources/home-neighborhood-safety. Also, check the websites of the numerous outfits that peddle alarm systems and other security measures. For example, ADT has a five-step home-security guide, while SimpliSafe recommends always setting your alarm system, even when you’re home.

You will probably find that a whole-house security system with cameras and motion-activated flashing lights is an expensive deterrent. But the cost may well be worth it for your peace of mind. And, of course, by installing such a system, you should be able to wrangle a big discount on your homeowner’s insurance -- maybe even 20 percent or so.

Finally, let’s all be a little more vigilant: Keep your doors and windows locked at all times, don’t allow package delivery services to leave stuff at your front door, and don’t allow mail and newspapers to pile up if you are away -- even just for a day or two.

Keep your curtains and garage doors closed so thieves can’t check out your goodies in advance of their next strike. Keep watches, keys, jewelry and cash out of sight, and store them in hard-to-find places -- ideally a safe. If you don’t have one, consider buying one. A safe can protect expensive items like jewelry and guns from theft, while also keeping important paperwork out of a criminal’s hands.

Also, to minimize the chances of your vehicle being used for a quick getaway, find another place for your car keys. Don’t keep them near an exterior doorway.

By the way, even if it was your neighbor’s house that was hit, you should consider the steps outlined here. Otherwise, you could be next.

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