lipripr
01-22-2008, 02:53 AM
Home for sale has four bedrooms, one buried murder victim
So much for curb appeal.
A stylish new house sits on South Tampa's Vasconia Street, for sale or rent.
But yellow crime-scene tape rings the front yard. A chunk of the stairway apparently has been cut away. Pieces of the slab are stacked in the garage. The foyer has a foxhole.
And a murder victim may be buried under it all.
"I just can't even imagine," sighs real estate agent Pam Stine, who has worked the area for 15 years and is listing a neighboring house.
For now, the 3,200-square foot home at 3908 W Vasconia isn't exactly open for showing. The Temple Terrace Police Department has spent more than a week digging through the floor and admitting few guests. Investigators are looking for the remains of Sandra Prince, a Temple Terrace social services executive who disappeared about the time the house's slab was poured.
She had dated the builder of the house, and police say she made him the full beneficiary of her estate.
So police began removing soil samples from beneath the house's foundation in October. And they returned 11 days ago with an excavation crew.
"The search warrant says they can continue as long as they need to, as long as it's an active search," said police spokesman Michael Dunn.
Afterward, they'll restore the house to its original condition, Dunn said.
"Whatever it takes to restore the house will be done at the city's expense," he said.
Until that happens, there's no point in speculating about the future of the house, said owner Timothy McLeod, who had it built as an investment for himself and his wife. McLeod said it's worth $750,000 to $800,000.
Real estate agents recognize that a sinister history can delay a home sale and depress the price.
"I think the seller will probably have to list it far below market value," said Leslee Coppock, a South Tampa real estate agent who is listing another house on Vasconia.
The National Association of Realtors calls houses with notoriety "stigmatized properties." It recommends that anyone marketing a stigmatized property investigate to detail how much - or how little - of the stigma is true.
And when in doubt, disclose, the association advises.
Florida law requires only that real estate agents disclose defects that "may materially affect the physical health or safety" of occupants, said Deborah Farmer, president of the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors.
The law specifies that a homicide does not have to be disclosed, and agents can't be held liable if they don't disclose it.
But in the case of McLeod's house, Coppock said she would have trouble selling it without disclosing the history.
Farmer said notoriety can strike some buyers as attractive.
"There's a buyer for every property," she said. "Somewhere out there, there's a buyer for it."
Stine believes such disclosures don't deter most buyers. But she sees little middle ground.
"Some people will barge ahead and say, 'That doesn't bother me,' " she said. "Some people will just totally freak out.
"Some people just don't care. They'll just live next to a graveyard and won't have a problem, and other people won't drive past it."
In South Tampa, Stine has seen both sides of it.
She knows of tenants who moved into a townhouse, only to watch a few weeks later as a jury paraded through the townhouse next door to view a murder scene. The tenants moved out.
But Stine also helped sell a home to a friend, then heard from the prior owner that it was haunted by the ghost of a mother-in-law. Delicately, Stine broached the news to her friend.
He laughed.
"Sometimes," he told her, "I'd welcome the company."
So much for curb appeal.
A stylish new house sits on South Tampa's Vasconia Street, for sale or rent.
But yellow crime-scene tape rings the front yard. A chunk of the stairway apparently has been cut away. Pieces of the slab are stacked in the garage. The foyer has a foxhole.
And a murder victim may be buried under it all.
"I just can't even imagine," sighs real estate agent Pam Stine, who has worked the area for 15 years and is listing a neighboring house.
For now, the 3,200-square foot home at 3908 W Vasconia isn't exactly open for showing. The Temple Terrace Police Department has spent more than a week digging through the floor and admitting few guests. Investigators are looking for the remains of Sandra Prince, a Temple Terrace social services executive who disappeared about the time the house's slab was poured.
She had dated the builder of the house, and police say she made him the full beneficiary of her estate.
So police began removing soil samples from beneath the house's foundation in October. And they returned 11 days ago with an excavation crew.
"The search warrant says they can continue as long as they need to, as long as it's an active search," said police spokesman Michael Dunn.
Afterward, they'll restore the house to its original condition, Dunn said.
"Whatever it takes to restore the house will be done at the city's expense," he said.
Until that happens, there's no point in speculating about the future of the house, said owner Timothy McLeod, who had it built as an investment for himself and his wife. McLeod said it's worth $750,000 to $800,000.
Real estate agents recognize that a sinister history can delay a home sale and depress the price.
"I think the seller will probably have to list it far below market value," said Leslee Coppock, a South Tampa real estate agent who is listing another house on Vasconia.
The National Association of Realtors calls houses with notoriety "stigmatized properties." It recommends that anyone marketing a stigmatized property investigate to detail how much - or how little - of the stigma is true.
And when in doubt, disclose, the association advises.
Florida law requires only that real estate agents disclose defects that "may materially affect the physical health or safety" of occupants, said Deborah Farmer, president of the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors.
The law specifies that a homicide does not have to be disclosed, and agents can't be held liable if they don't disclose it.
But in the case of McLeod's house, Coppock said she would have trouble selling it without disclosing the history.
Farmer said notoriety can strike some buyers as attractive.
"There's a buyer for every property," she said. "Somewhere out there, there's a buyer for it."
Stine believes such disclosures don't deter most buyers. But she sees little middle ground.
"Some people will barge ahead and say, 'That doesn't bother me,' " she said. "Some people will just totally freak out.
"Some people just don't care. They'll just live next to a graveyard and won't have a problem, and other people won't drive past it."
In South Tampa, Stine has seen both sides of it.
She knows of tenants who moved into a townhouse, only to watch a few weeks later as a jury paraded through the townhouse next door to view a murder scene. The tenants moved out.
But Stine also helped sell a home to a friend, then heard from the prior owner that it was haunted by the ghost of a mother-in-law. Delicately, Stine broached the news to her friend.
He laughed.
"Sometimes," he told her, "I'd welcome the company."