Ghosts can’t stop Australia’s property boom, says real estate agent Alex Fleri.
Australia’s haunted homes draw sceptics hoping to land a cheap house, but the reality often has many running scared.
Real estate agent Alex Fleri said there were hundreds of haunted homes across Australia with a “weird energy” that has driven out former residents out – with a telling sign being a home that comes on the market often, rapidly or is left abandoned for no good market reason.
“If you believe in ghosts, it’s up to you whether you go through with the purchase or not,” he said. “There are plenty of properties that change hands every 12 months, there’s weird energy people can’t explain and so they move out.”
“I’ve had customers move out of properties that have been haunted and they feel a bit daft speaking about it. It makes you quirky. It’s a bit off, a bit awkward.”
The hotel that gave James Phelps a serious scare.
True crime writer James Phelps spent months researching for his latest book Australian Ghost Stories (HarperCollins Australia $34.99) and considered himself a sceptic.
“I could live with ghosts, but guys like Ivan Mallat when he was alive, no thanks,” he said.
Then he looked at a few photos he shot off at midnight in the Hydro Majestic hotel in Sydney’s west, the scariest property he has ever been in – and saw eyes looking back at him.
“Some places are linked to horror that happened there but others like the Hydro Majesic are not on fan sites, there are no tours, it’s a secret,” he said.
It just felt different, Mr Phelps told News Corp real estate. “Hotel management called psychics because they were worried about an OH&S complaint from employees about ghosts.”
James Phelps snapped off a bunch of pictures, including this one that some see more into.
Mr Phelps said there were many homes across the country where the hauntings were not publicised. “All those residents didn’t know the ghost history but they all ended up leaving after their own ghost experience. They had things thrown across the room, thoughts of harming their partners.”
Among those mysterious houses was one at Prince Edward Street, Gladesville, that Laing+Simmons Hunters Hill real estate agent John Priddy told Mr Phelps was “an enigma why no one has lived there. You can’t go inside; it’s not safe. Not even a possum would live there” – rumoured to be haunted by an old lady who once lived there.
“People would say she was a witch because of how she lived,’ was how a neighbour described it in the book, saying “all the creepy stuff people were doing there added to the legend”.
“We would hear them scream, and they would run out of the house, across the yard and jump our fence.”
Gold Coast real estate agent Alex Fleri who is also an actor in an upcoming Zombie move.
Often, Mr Phelps said, current residents could be unaware of the history of the home such as one he tracked down in Gladesville in New South Wales. “I don’t think the people that moved into it know. I was glad they didn’t answer, how do you tell someone their house has that haunted history?”
Mr Fleri who operates under Amir Prestige Group has had his own encounters with ghosts – the worst being in Brisbane’s Hamilton where a property owner warned him “don’t open that door”.
“This energy hit me like you wouldn’t believe, and I could not move, I’m 110kg. It was pitch black. It’s weird. This electricity and energy all around you.”
He said the property owner told him to stay calm because “(the ghost) he just wants to show you where he was murdered”.
That feeling sometimes comes up at other properties he sees, including one where he felt an energy wash over him standing at the door, before being told: “She died in there” of the previous owner.
Tales often build up around abandoned homes or those that owners leave suddenly.
Mr Fleri said the supernatural side should be disclosed to buyers beforehand, even if you don’t believe it.
“Certainly if you have suspicions it is haunted you do have to declare it. If someone was murdered in the property, you have to declare that.”
“Four beds, two baths, two ghosts,” he said.
This Macleay Island home sold “finally to a nice guy – so resident ghost is happy”.
Many Aussies were believers in the supernatural, he said, with a woman even turning up to property inspections on the Gold Coast with a psychic. “She’d check every property with a clairvoyant”, he said.
Ghost stories have not deterred property sales, with the seller of an art deco beach home in Brisbane’s Macleay Island even declaring his “quirky and original” property which sold for $319,666 cash – went “fully furnished and renovated – finally to a nice guy – so resident ghost is happy”.
James Phelps’ book Australian Ghost Stories is out now.
Australia’s raging property boom it seems won’t stop even for ghosts with Mr Phelps finding the Sydney home Mr Priddy listed sold for $1.64m – a massive $140,000 higher than the asking price.
Murders, Mr Priddy said in the book, were more of an obstacle to home sales than ghosts: “I can tell you from experience that homes that have been the scene of a tragedy like a murder are difficult to sell. Whether that death took place ten or twenty years before, it does affect the sale … I never met a nasty ghost.”
**Australian Ghost Stories by James Phelps is available now (HarperCollins Australia $34.99)
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