Most prospective co-op and condo buyers have a long list of questions to ask about the properties they’re considering, like what’s the monthly maintenance fee? How are the reserves? Does the roof deck get plenty of direct sunlight? How long does it take the super to respond to a maintenance request? All very practical things to inquire about. But what about…ghosts? Crummy water pressure is one thing—but having an uninvited phantom housemate causing uncanny disturbances at all hours is something else entirely. 

With Spooky Season officially here, and because spectral shenanigans aren’t limited to creepy castles and crumbling Victorian mansions, here are some accounts of paranormal activity in condo and co-op communities across the country. Read on…if you dare! 

The dream of homeownership usually includes grand light fixtures, upgraded kitchens, and cozy layout flow. For some residential co-ops and condominiums, however, the real estate market comes with an extra amenity: uninvited spectral residents.

While ghost stories often evoke image-heavy visions of abandoned, secluded mansions or gothic country estates, urban high-rises and historic multi-family developments carry their own documented hauntings. Because multi-family housing holds a high density of past lives, historic co-op and condo conversions across major metropolitan areas have generated some of the most persistent ghost stories in the country.

Chicago - Gold Coast Ghosts

875 North Michigan Avenue - aka the John Hancock Center

Soaring 100 stories above Lake Michigan, the iconic trapezoidal tower—now known officially by its street address—is home to high-end residential condominiums, dining, and retail. The building’s distinct exterior X-bracing makes it instantly recognizable, but local paranormal investigators point to its troubled history, which includes a string of tragic falls, high-profile deaths (including comedian Chris Farley in his 60th-floor condo in 1997), and unusual structural folklore; infamous occultist Anton LeVay even claimed that the tower's angled walls are “not harmonious with natural visual orientation” and function as a kind of supernatural doorway.

Residents living on the Hancock’s condo floors regularly report bizarre phenomena ranging from sudden, intense cold spots in high-floor units to shadowy figures observed along the corridors, or drifting past windows hundreds of feet in the air. Over the years, building staff have reported unexplained fire alarms and small fires with no discernible cause, and visitors often describe a general feeling of unease from the moment they step inside.

The Original Playboy Mansion 

1340 N. State Parkway was built for surgeon George Snow Isham in 1899; 60 years later, it was purchased by none other than Hugh Hefner, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars converting the stately home into his flagship Playboy Mansion, complete with an indoor pool, grotto, and living quarters for Playboy Bunnies. Hefner eventually sold the mansion, and following a stint as dormitories for the School of the Art Institute, it was gut-renovated into a handful of ultra-luxury condominiums in 1993.

Current condo owners live on the grounds where tragic celebrity history unfolded, notably the untimely death of Hefner’s executive assistant Bobbie Arnstein in 1975, shortly after her conviction in a federal drug investigation tied to the mansion. Residents and maintenance staff have logged unexplained phenomena within the residential units and communal areas, including disembodied footsteps pacing the basement hallways, sudden drafts, and the sensation of being closely watched in former party suites.

New York City - Spook Central

The Dakota 

There’s no better place to start a discussion of haunted co-ops than with the legendary Dakota on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The luxury residential co-operative was completed in 1884, and now holds 93 cooperative apartments.

The Dakota's ghost lore goes way back; for decades, contractors and staff have reported sighting a girl with long blonde hair in 19th century attire waving from windows or walking along the hallways, sometimes bouncing a ball. When approached by startled tenants, she reportedly smiles, waves, and vanishes into solid brick walls or closed apartment doors. During extensive interior renovations in the 1960s, a team of union carpenters reported repeated encounters with a male figure possessing the body of a grown man but the facial features of a young boy. 

John Lennon, who lived there with Yoko Ono from 1973 until his tragic assassination outside the building’s entryway in 1980, told people he'd repeatedly encountered a spectral woman in the halls he nicknamed the “Crying Lady,” and said he'd once seen a UFO from his apartment window. After Lennon’s murder, multiple witnesses have claimed to encounter his spirit as well. Ono once said she saw him sitting at his white piano, telling her, “Don't be afraid. I am still with you,” and in 1983, musician Joey Harrow and a companion both reported seeing Lennon's spirit leaning against the wrought-iron gates in the archway near where he died, “surrounded by an eerie light.”

The Ansonia 

Further uptown at 2109 Broadway, the Ansonia—built as a grand residential hotel in 1899 and converted to a residential condominium in 1992—has just over 400 units and a history to match its ornate Beaux-Arts exterior.

Many residents and staff members have reported uncanny encounters in the building’s elevators: doors opening to reveal a phantom couple dressed in formal Edwardian attire who silently beckon living passengers to join them at a “party” on upper floors. Residents commonly report phantom operatic singing echoing through hallway air vents, attributed to the countless performers who inhabited the grand building during the early 20th century. For years, the Ansonia was also a magnet for mediums and spiritualists: parapsychologist Dr. Clifford Bias reportedly held séances in a chapel off the hotel's old lobby, at one point relaying a message purportedly from opera star Geraldine Farrar. Along with the elevators, recent accounts from residents describe a hazy female figure once seen standing over a resident's dog walker in the middle of the night, and apparitions have been reported in the basement.

Boston - Historic Haunts  

The Charlesgate Condominiums 

The Charlesgate stands at 4 Charlesgate East (also addressed as 535 Beacon Street). Designed by architect J. Pickering Putnam and built in 1891 as a luxury apartment hotel, it later served as a dormitory for Boston University and then Emerson College, before being converted into 56 condominium units in the late 1990s.

The building's paranormal reputation is well-documented, largely from its dorm years: BU students reported doors slamming on their own, unset alarms going off, dark figures glimpsed in rooms, and persistent sightings of a young girl from the building’s hotel years who died from a fall down an open elevator shaft while chasing a runaway ball; she allegedly still wanders the halls looking for it. Legendary magician Harry Houdini chose the Charlesgate in 1923 to hold official séances testing medium Mina Crandon for a Scientific American prize, ultimately declaring her a fraud. It is worth noting that no confirmed ghost reports have surfaced from the building since its 1990s conversion to condos…but one can always hope. 

New Jersey - Garden State Ghosties

The Beacon 

For a residential development with an intense history, it’s tough to top The Beacon, the roughly 14-acre, 1,200-unit complex built inside the former Jersey City Medical Center's Art Deco campus in Jersey City. The Medical Center included a general hospital, a psychiatric area, a morgue, and the Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital—so thousands of people were born, treated, and passed away here over the decades. The Center closed in 2004 and in 2007 the campus was redeveloped into a mixed-ownership complex with some buildings converting to rentals, while others became condos. 

Spooky goings-on at the Beacon—often spread via social media posts and word of mouth—include everything from flickering hallway lights to sightings of phantom nurses going about their rounds, distant sounds of crying babies, footsteps echoing on stages in old assembly areas, and elevators moving on their own. Some urban legends claim the old morgue area and spa sections hold heavy residual energy, and a general sense that the old hospital's history lingers on.

Amenity, or Liability? 

While an alleged haunting or other paranormal phenomena can be an amusing non-issue—and sometimes even a positive selling point—for many apartment seekers, there’s a serious side to buying and selling units with ‘dark’ histories. 

While sellers in many jurisdictions are required to disclose a property’s physical flaws or defects, state disclosure laws vary widely regarding "stigmatized properties” that buyers may avoid due to psychological or emotional factors such as a violent crime, suicide, on-site death, illegal operations like drug labs, a past owner with an infamous reputation, or—you guessed it—alleged paranormal activity. For instance, while California requires disclosing any death on a property within the last three years, New York does not require sellers to volunteer deaths or hauntings—the burden often falls on the buyer to dig into the past. 

If you think you’ve found your dream apartment, but want to make sure it doesn’t come with any paranormal ‘perks,’ consider asking a few specific, direct questions before you sign that contract: 

Ask the seller and listing agent directly whether there have been any violent crimes, deaths, suicides, or unusual psychological incidents in the unit, or on the property in general. While agents aren't always legally required to volunteer that information, in almost every jurisdiction they are required to answer direct questions truthfully. You can also ask your own real estate agent to pull local police dispatch logs and check specialized online databases (such as DiedInHouse.com) or local land registries to verify if any notorious events have been reported at the address. Neighbors are also a great source for unvarnished neighborhood lore, so if you run into a current resident of the building, you might even ask how long the apartment has been on the market, and whether there’s any history or reputation you should know about.

If you’re willing to share your floor plan with the supernatural, living in a haunted co-op or condo gives you an automatic conversational ice-breaker—and guarantees you'll never truly feel like you're coming home to an empty apartment. Sweet dreams!