The Colorado home where Chris Watts strangled his pregnant wife to death has a potential buyer after several months on the market.
The Frederick, Colorado home, featured in the 2024 "20/20: The Interrogation Tapes" series and the 2020 Netflix true crime documentary "American Murder: The Family Next Door," is listed for $749,500.
The price was reduced in April from $775,000 to $750,000 and then by another $500 in May.
The seller was offering $15,000 toward a buyer interest rate as well.
According to Realtor.com, the Watts couple bought the house for just under $399,954 in May 2013 and lived there until 2018.
Watts killed his wife, Shanann Watts, during an argument on August 13, 2018, after confessing to having an affair with a colleague. Then he smothered their daughters Bella and Celeste in his car.
His wife's body was buried in a shallow grave, and he put his daughters in oil tanks about 15 miles from the home at Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, where he worked.
Real estate appraiser and CEO of Landmark Research spoke to Newsweek and stated that there are challenges associated with selling property linked to tragic events.
Property can linger for decades with high-profile crimes, so economic incentives and financial discounts – 10% to 25% – are instilled.
"The number one rule that I advise the sellers and buyers is, to tell the truth, people respect the truth," Bell said. "It's healthier for everyone."
Overselling and concealing information can lead to lawsuits and have a greater effect on the value.
Regarding the rest of the community, Bell said that the damage is compartmentalized and doesn't ripple into the neighborhood.
For example, after the 1996 murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey that gripped the nation for decades, he spoke to a couple who bought a home nearby.
"Their attitude was – that affects that house, it doesn't affect my house," Bell said.
Bell shared a couple of scenarios of what could ultimately happen to the property if the buyer backs out.
In an extreme example like serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment building in Milwaukee, Minnesota where he tortured, dismembered and ate his several of his victims, it could be demolished.
"The property was bulldozed, and they sold it for a premium to a buyer anxious to demo the apartment building because it was messing up a redevelopment plan for the community," Bell said.
The 49-unit building where Dahmer murdered his victims was razed in 1992, 15 months after human remains were found in apartment 213.
In another case, it could be monetized like the Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, Massachusetts, although he stated that it is not likely.
The sale is currently in "pending" status.
Borden was accused of killing her father and stepmother with an ax in 1892 in what's now known as the Lizzie Border Bed and Breakfast Museum—aka the "murder house"—just a stone's throw away from the mansion Borden purchased in 1893 after she was acquitted of all charges. She lived in the stately Maplecroft home with her sister Emma Borden and died in one of the two bedrooms that belonged to her.
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