Users of HomeDisclosure.com, a pre-diligence website, now have access to “death in home” data, which is used to determine, for example, whether a murder, suicide, accidental or natural death occurred at a residence before purchasing it.
Such information can be useful to buyers who are averse to living someplace where someone has died, says ATTOM Data Solutions, the parent company of HomeDisclosure.com, in a release.
However, only a handful of states – California, Alaska and South Dakota – require home sellers to reveal this information to potential buyers in written disclosures.
“Consumers want as much due diligence information as possible before buying or renting a home,” says Sean Mooney, senior director of product and user experience for HomeDisclosure.com, in the release. “During our beta period for HomeDisclosure.com we learned that our customers wanted to know if someone had died in a home before buying or renting it. Not every state requires a death in the home to be disclosed by a seller, but it’s clear that consumers want this information available earlier in the sales process to help them make a better decision, which may include negotiating a discount off the asking price.”
In addition to the new “death in home” feature, HomeDisclosure sports 42 categories of home and neighborhood data, including addresses of nearby registered offenders and former meth labs, natural hazard risks, environmental hazard risks, crime ratings, school test scores, median income, underground natural gas storage facilities and much more hyper-local data.