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2016’s Most Popular Homes Were Led by the Biggest Fixer-Upper of All Time

We’re fascinated by homes that rise above the rest in terms of popularity. Each week, we count the clicks and run down the most popular homes on realtor.com®. Now, we’re ready to close the books on 2016 (in all ways imaginable)—so we’re counting down the most popular properties of the entire year.

Nearly 365 days’ worth of your clicks have been tabulated, and we weren’t completely shocked by this year’s winner. The country’s biggest fixer-upper was the subject of one of our most popular articles of the year. Located in Texas, the mammoth structure is still looking for a buyer willing to spend $3.6 million on a home that’s only a little more than halfway done.

Suffice it to say, it’s a different opportunity for a courageous buyer. It’s also different from the other homes on our year-end list in that it’s still on the market.

Many of the most popular homes of the year were able to score a buyer—including two homes with infamous movie tie-ins. In less infamous news, the fascinating full-circle story of the “Full House” house propelled the San Francisco treat into second place for the year.

Besides those houses, we ran into a bunch of familiar faces. You’ll see a house littered with a stupendous amount of beer cans, a home built into a cave in Missouri, and an unsold castle in Connecticut with the dubious honor of making this list three years in a row.

Without further ado, here are the 10 most popular homes of 2016. It’s been quite a year! Drumroll, please…

10. 108 Ocean Ave, Amityville, NY

The ‘Amityville Horror’ house
Price: Undisclosed—but it entered into contract in November
Why it’s here: It’s impossible to ignore this home’s infamous allure. The site of gruesome murders in the early ’70s, this supposedly haunted house was immortalized in books and a baffling number of films over the ensuing decades. It made its way back on the market in June with an asking price of $850,000. Of course, there were no interior photos of this classic Colonial, but a fearless buyer made an offer in November and the home’s currently under contract.

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9. 450 Brickyard Rd, Woodstock, CT

The Connecticut castle
Price: $39 million before being pulled from the market this year
Why it’s here: We’re now in our third year of tallying up the most popular homes of the year, and this opulent castle is the only home to make the list all three years! Congratulations?

The royal structure topped our list in 2014 and finished third in 2015. Its popularity dimmed a bit this year, but that’s likely due to the extravagant edifice being pulled from the market in the middle of the year. Before that, however, the castle had its first experience with the unsympathetic sword of price cuts and its longtime $45 million price was cut to $39 million.

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8. 8 Circle St, Perryopolis, PA

The ‘Silence of the Lambs’ house
Price: Sold in June for $195,000
Why it’s here: It’s another holdover from our most popular homes of 2015. However, this story has a happier ending. After finishing second on last year’s list, the “Silence of the Lambs” home finally found a buyer this summer. The asking price for the home immortalized by the movie’s freaky serial killer Jame Gumb was $249,000, so the buyer received a sizable discount.

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7. 108 Freese Dr, Sanger, TX

The beer can hoarder house, aka Natty Light nightmare
Price: Listed for $89,900, it’s in sale-pending status.
Why it’s here: This memorable home captured a massive amount of attention in a short amount of time. It went up for sale in October and made up a ton of ground on homes with a 10-month head start in click accumulation.

Why? Because the photos of the home had to be seen to be believed. Being sold as is for just under $90,000, the home was a monument to one person’s love of cheap beer. The floors were thick with hundreds (thousands?) of empty cans of Natural Light and presented a buy-worthy bounty for a recycler with a strong constitution.

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6. 301 N Carolwood Dr, Los Angeles, CA

The $150 million spec mansion
Price: Sold in October for $100 million
Why it’s here: Introduced to the market in April for $150 million, this over-the-top spec home was built with a high roller in mind. And a high roller it found—at a steep discount. Billionaire Tom Gores bought the massive mansion in October for $100 million.

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5. Undisclosed address, Festus, MO

The cave dwelling
Price: $314,900
Why it’s here: No buyer has emerged for one of our favorite homes of the year. On the market since September, it’s likely the only cave-based residence in the country built on the site of a former roller-skating rink.

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4. 612 Dauphine St, New Orleans, LA

Lenny Kravitz’s former French Quarter home
Price: Sold in May for $1.05 million
Why it’s here: This one-bedroom home in the French Quarter offered a serious celebrity pedigree. Rock star Lenny Kravitz was responsible for this home’s design and decor before selling the chic Creole cottage in 2012 for $655,000. It was on the market as a pricey ($12,000 a month) rental in 2014 before being listed in March for $1.16 million. After rocking the market with its cool factor, the home sold a couple of months later for just over a million bucks.

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3. 2733 Cedar Lodge Dr, Baton Rouge, LA

Les Miles’ (former?) home
Price: Listed for $1.8 million in early November, it was soon taken off the market.
Why it’s here: After being unceremoniously dumped by LSU in September, former head football coach Les Miles didn’t waste any time putting his Baton Rouge mansion on the market. The five-bedroom home attracted an outsize amount of attention from SEC football fanatics who wanted a glimpse of the coach’s digs. It was pulled from the market just a couple of weeks later, but we couldn’t get confirmation on a sale from the home’s listing agent.

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2. 1709 Broderick St, San Francisco, CA

The ‘Full House’ house
Price: Sold in August for $4 million
Why it’s here: The “Full House” house came full circle this year, and it was very meta. On the heels of the show’s Netflix reboot, the San Francisco home that served as the show’s establishing exterior went up for sale in May for $4.15 million. It sold in July for just a smidge under asking—$4 million. By September, it was being offered by the new owner as a monthly rental for the eye-popping price of $13,950 per month. But just who was this mysterious owner looking to rake in rental income? His identity was revealed in December as Jeff Franklin, the creator of the still-popular TV sitcom. Whoa, baby!

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1. 2354 County Road 59, Manvel, TX

The country’s biggest fixer-upper
Price: $3,600,000
Why it’s here: You’ll need a big bankroll and an even bigger plan to finish the country’s biggest fixer-upper. Up for sale for nearly a decade, this mammoth structure (60,000-plus square feet!) is only 70% complete. Sitting in a suburb outside Houston, the hulking home has proved too daunting for a bold buyer to snap up. When we spoke with the homeowner this summer, he was going to give a sale a couple more months to materialize before transforming the property into a “rural office park.” We’ll venture to guess the office park plan will be in the works for 2017.

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