JonBenet house is back on market

The house’s sordid past doesn’t bother everyone, an expert said.

Scripps Howard News Service

BOULDER, Colo. — The house where JonBenet Ramsey’s body was discovered nearly 12 years ago is back on the market.

The 7,092-square-foot, four-story house — the former home of John and Patsy Ramsey, whose 6-year-old daughter was murdered and found in the home’s basement on Christmas Eve 1996 — recently was posted on the public listings for $2.68 million.

The listing price is more than double its $1.05 million sale in 2004, and is comparable to or slightly more expensive than other similar-sized houses for sale in the University Hill neighborhood, according to local real estate data. During the past six months, 11 houses in the neighboring area sold at prices between $1 million and $3 million.

When it comes to real estate stigmatized by past crimes and catastrophes, time sometimes can be a market-value healer, said Randall Bell, an appraiser, economist and nationally known expert on damaged real estate.

Bell, a principal of Bell Anderson & Sanders LLC, has consulted on economic damages caused by crime scenes including JonBenet Ramsey’s home; the Heaven’s Gate mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., where cult members committed mass suicide; and the Nicole Brown Simpson condominium in Los Angeles, whose murder put O.J. Simpson on trial.

“Emotionally, it may not go away, but in terms of real estate values, it does go away,” Bell said, noting that the Beverly Hills house where actress Sharon Tate was stabbed to death in 1969 by the Charles Manson “family” sold for its full value 20 years later.

Generally speaking, Bell said, it takes about seven years for values and the neighboring area “to get back to normal.”

A house with a sordid past “will bother some people, but it won’t bother others,” he added. “As time goes on, the situation gets better.”

John and Patsy Ramsey purchased the house, then known as 755 15th St., for $500,000 in 1991, according to Boulder County assessor records. In 1998, the Ramseys sold the house for $650,000 to a group of investors, who pledged to resell it and donate profits to the JonBenet Ramsey Children’s Foundation.

In 1999, E.J. “Doc” Kreis, a University of Colorado strength and conditioning coach, rented the house for two years.

In 2004, Tim Milner and his wife, Carol Schuller Milner — the daughter of “Hour of Power” televangelist Robert A. Schuller — bought the home for $1.05 million.

When the Milners bought the Tudor-style home, Tim Milner said the house’s size made it seem like a “perfect fit” for him, his wife and four children.

A year-and-a-half later, a for-sale sign appeared in front of their house.

At the time, Tim Milner told a reporter that the value of his home dropped when news stories or television features appeared about the JonBenet killing. Milner also complained about a continuous stream of onlookers and sightseers who would stop and sometimes take pictures in front of the house’s gated exterior.

The Milners, who now live and work in California, could not be reached to comment for this article.

A year later — when John Mark Karr was arrested as a suspect in the JonBenet crime — a Florida newspaper reported that the house had been pulled off the market. A 36-year-old Florida man, who reportedly signed a contract to purchase the home for $1.7 million, claimed to the paper that his deal had fallen through.

Karr was later exonerated of the crime when his DNA did not match crime-scene evidence.