The Miami Herald | Julia Marnin
It was nearly 20 years ago, but Cindi Hagley, a realtor in California’s Bay Area, still remembers being alone inside a home in Antioch when she swore she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Hagley, who left a career as an ABC TV executive in 2006, hosted an open house for the property the following afternoon. A neighbor arrived, eager to see the inside — and that’s when she learned the “scary” home had a decades-long reputation of being haunted.
Hagley later informed the seller of this “interesting feedback.” They told her “oh yeah, we’ve got a ghost.” She wondered what would happen if she started marketing the home as “haunted.” When she did, the interest spiked. Her marketing strategy worked out in her favor, although she ultimately sold the home to buyers who didn’t believe in ghosts, she explained. She first made her mark selling homes rumored to be haunted, including that first one she ever sold in Antioch, but she’s not a “’haunted house realtor’ as some folks claim to be,” she told McClatchy News.
Read: Should ‘haunted’ homes come with a warning? What realtors and paranormal experts say
