The Chicago Tribune Mary Umberger Real Estate column

There has been no one to shoo away the reporters because the now-famous home is unoccupied. The house has been sold a couple of times since the Ramseys moved to Atlanta in 1997. The current owners, who have moved to California, bought it in 2004 for about $1 million, according to local media reports. The Ramsey house, which is probably what it always will be called, is what's known in the real estate business as a "stigmatized property," one tainted by anything from mere scandal to grisly murder to occupation by poltergeists.

It's a tricky area in real estate law because a stigma is a "psychological impact" of an event and difficult to quantify, compared with a material defect such as the presence of asbestos or a flooded basement.

Some states require sellers to disclose certain stigmas, such as murder, that have occurred on the property. Under Illinois law, the seller's real estate agent has no duty to disclose such a crime, according to the National Association of Realtors. Of course, if the seller or an agent were asked a direct question, they would be required to answer truthfully.

Until the recent uproar over John Mark Karr's televised confession that he had killed JonBenet, the Ramsey house probably was well on its way to overcoming its taint, according to Randall Bell, a California appraiser who specializes in stigmatized properties. Although much of his work is related to natural and environmental disasters--he's focusing on the costs of Hurricane Katrina now--he has appraised many notorious crime scenes, such as the condominium where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were killed in 1994 and the compound in Southern California where 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in 1997. He also appraised the Ramsey home when the couple was preparing to sell it and move to Atlanta.

"Typically, crime-scene stigma lasts a minimum of two years, or as much as five to seven years," Bell said. "Then it's pretty much forgotten about," at least insofar as the crime affecting a house's value.

But the Ramsey house is a different matter now, he said. "With this surfacing after 10 years, it's going to take it all the way back to square one," Bell said. "Perception is realty."

In other words, he said, it's as if the crime had happened all over again.

A 2000 study by a professor of finance at Wright State University in Ohio found that stigmatized properties do sell for less, though not by a lot. Typically they fetch 3 percent less than comps, according to James Larsen, who conducted the study. But they do take about 45 percent longer to sell, he concluded.

The "be patient" message should be of some comfort to Gerry Roberts, who bought the former home of Scott and Laci Peterson in Modesto, Calif.

Unless you've managed to avoid cable news broadcasts in the last few years, you probably know that Laci Peterson suffered a violent death in 2002 and her husband is now on Death Row, convicted of killing her and their unborn child. Though law-enforcement authorities contend that the murder occurred in the home, the crime's location wasn't proved.

Roberts bought the house for $390,000 in 2005. He told Garth Stapley at the Modesto Bee that he no longer can afford the house, and listed it for sale for $479,900 in July. He quickly lowered the asking price by $30,000 and this month he put it on eBay, where his ad described it as "a great family home."

He also plainly identified it as the home of the Petersons, which caused eBay to yank the auction listing until all references to the couple were removed. The auction came and went with 178 viewings, but no bids. Appraisers who specialize in stigmatized properties have told me that wounds to a home's reputation do fade, particularly in California, where the relatively transient population translates into neighborhood turnover that speeds the process.

Of course, that depends on how the owner plays it: Roberts' real estate agent told Stapley he felt obliged to disclose the Peterson connection in the ad. Roberts, on the other hand, said he hoped the notoriety would make the house more marketable.

Sometimes, unfortunately, that can be true. Consider the Victorian residence in Fall River, Mass., where Lizzie Borden was notoriously accused (and acquitted) of taking an axe to her father and stepmother in 1892.

The current owners have turned the place into a bed-and-breakfast inn, where guests pay to sleep where the crimes occurred. And, to make your Lizzie Borden experience complete, there's a gift shop where you can buy a Lizzie Borden bobblehead or a key ring adorned with a little silver hatchet.

Did someone say "stigma?"