Homes under the hammer

Coming to the property market: Neverland, Michael Jackson's old home (or Six Flags Xanadu, as it'd have been more appropriate to call it).

It was once a toy town wilderness, complete with carnival rides, artificial lake and a zoo that housed a five-tonne elephant and an orangutan named Patrick.

Now Michael Jackson's famed Neverland Ranch is up for sale for the first time since it was acquired by the King of Pop in 1988 and, despite being valued at $30m (£18m) by California property experts, could sell for between $75m and $85m.

Yes, because who wouldn't want to pay nearly treble the value of an already overpriced house on the off-chance there might be skeletons buried underneath the master bedroom ("for its links to one of the most famous celebrities of the 1980s")?

The funfair has been taken out and replaced with a "zen garden", but they still reckon just upkeep will cost the new owner five million dollars a year.

But there's almost certainly no ghosts of small children haunting the place, so that's an upside.

If the idea of a place where a rich man abused kids and got away with it isn't for you, how about the former home of an angry flying man?

John Denver's Aspen home is on the market:

The main house (6 bedrooms)and the guest house (5 bedrooms)are on two separately deeded lots with separate entrances and driveways but has a lovely walking path between the two featuring the red mountain ditch gurgling along the way.

I think I'd be nervous about anything in the Colorado mountains that has a small stream gurgling away, what with how Colorado floods so easily, but it'd be worth the risk of the views.