Randall Bell (born 1959), is a socio-economist, real estate economist and appraiser, expert witness, and author based in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

known for dealing with

stigmatized property In real estate, stigmatized property is property that buyers or tenants may shun for reasons that are unrelated to its physical condition or features. These can include death of an occupant, murder, suicide, and even the belief that a house is haun ...

. Bell is an expert on real estate damages, who authored a highly referenced textbook on the subject, and was called "Dr. Disaster" by ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''. Bell's notable cases include:

Nicole Brown Simpson Nicole Brown Simpson (née Brown; May 19, 1959 – June 12, 1994) was the ex-wife of the former professional American football player, O. J. Simpson, to whom she was married from 1985 to 1992. She was the mother of their two children, Sydney an ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

condominium, the mansion where 39 Heaven's Gate members died of suicide, the JonBenét Ramsey house in Colorado, the

World Trade Center site The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground zero#World Trade Center, Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounde ...

, and properties damaged in the

Rodney King riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the Los Angeles Race Riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992. Unrest began in So ...

and by

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

Early life and education

Bell grew up in

Fullerton, California Fullerton ( ) is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 143,617. Fullerton was founded in 1887. It secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and Sa ...

as the son of an engineer and homemaker, and attended Troy High School. He has an MBA from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. He received his doctoral degree from

Fielding Graduate University Fielding Graduate University (previously Fielding Graduate Institute and The Fielding Institute) is a private graduate-level university in Santa Barbara, California. It offers postgraduate and doctoral studies mainly in psychology, education, an ...

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

, with a dissertation on the socioeconomic reasoning of

survivors.

Career

Bell began working on appraisals of environmental and asbestos damage in the 1980s. He has also assessed

Chinese drywall "Chinese drywall" refers to an environmental health issue involving defective drywall manufactured in China, imported to the United States and used in residential construction between 2001 and 2009 affecting "an estimated 100,000 homes in more tha ...

and sink holes. In 1992, Bell assessed the damages of the

. After the riots, he decided to focus only on damaged properties. Also in 1992, Bell created the Bell Chart, a rating system that categorizes the 10 types of detrimental conditions and their corresponding economic damages of properties. The system ranks properties from class 1 (no detrimental effects) to class 10 (an incurable condition). In 1994, he began assessing stigmatized properties such as the damages of the

Northridge earthquake The 1994 Northridge earthquake was a moment 6.7 (), blind thrust earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:30:55 a.m. PST in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles. The quake had a duration of approximately ...

and wildfires in

Malibu, California Malibu ( ; es, Malibú; Chumash: ) is a beach city in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles. It is known for its Mediterranean climate and its strip of the Malibu ...

. In 1997, he became the national director of the Real Estate Damages practice of Price Waterhouse. He left the firm in 1999, and co-founded Bell Anderson & Sanders with two partners. He is presently CEO of Landmark Research Group. Bell works with properties that have been affected by crime, environmental contamination, construction defects, reported hauntings, and natural disasters. He has consulted on

's condominium; the

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bev ...

estate where

Charles Manson Charles Milles Manson (; November 12, 1934November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four loca ...

's followers murdered

Sharon Tate Sharon Marie Tate Polanski (January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969) was an American actress and model. During the 1960s, she played small television roles before appearing in films and was regularly featured in fashion magazines as a model and cover ...

and four other people in 1969; the

Rancho Santa Fe Rancho Santa Fe is a census-designated place (CDP) in San Diego County, California, United States, within the San Diego metropolitan area. The population was 3,156 at the 2020 census. The CDP is primarily residential with a few shopping block ...

mansions where the bodies of 39

Heaven's Gate cult Heaven's Gate was an American new religious movement (often described as a cult), founded in 1974 and led by Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985) and Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997), known within the movement as Ti and Do, respectively. Ti and Do firs ...

members were found, the house in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

, where JonBenét Ramsey was killed; the home of

Sandy Hook Elementary School Sandy may refer to: People and fictional characters *Sandy (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Sandy (surname), a list of people *Sandy (singer), Brazilian singer and actress Sandy Leah Lima (born 1983) * (Sandy) ...

shooter

Adam Lanza The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old, and t ...

; and the house of Las Vegas shooter

Stephen Paddock Stephen Craig Paddock (April 9, 1953 – October 1, 2017) was an American mass murderer who perpetrated the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. Paddock opened fire into a crowd of about 22,000 concertgoers attending a country music festival on the Las ...

. He has also consulted on

; the

Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese: , , meaning "coconut place"), sometimes known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 1800s and 1946 is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. After the Second ...

in the

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...

; the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

at the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

; and the

United Airlines Flight 93 United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda attackers aboard the plane on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The plane eventually crashed in Som ...

crash site in

Shanksville Shanksville is a borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. It has a population of 197 as of the 2020 U.S. census. It is part of the Somerset, Pennsylvania Micropolitan Statistical Area and is located southeast of Pittsburgh and west of Philade ...

. Bell has traveled to

Chernobyl Chernobyl ( , ; russian: Чернобыль, ) or Chornobyl ( uk, Чорнобиль, ) is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Chernobyl is about no ...

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

; to the

; and to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

to find comparisons in properties damaged by terrorist attacks. He has also traveled to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

to interview scientists about

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

and how it affects costs, such as insurance for home owners. The

Appraisal Institute The Appraisal Institute (AI), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is an international association of professional real estate appraisers. It was founded in January 1991 when the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers (AIREA) and the Society ...

published Bell's book ''Real Estate Damages: Applied Economics and Detrimental Conditions'' in 2008. In 2011, Bell returned from

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

, where he consulted with landowners whose property included the cave where

Shoichi Yokoi was a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during the Second World War, and was one of the last three Japanese holdouts to be found after the end of hostilities in 1945. He was discovered in the jungles of Guam on 24 January 1972, almos ...

, a Japanese army sergeant, hid for 28 years, unaware that

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

had ended. The landowners opened a theme park on the property. In recent years, Bell has begun writing self-help books, inspired by his interactions with disaster victims and his personal experiences with overcoming trauma and obstacles. Bell hosted the 2020 docuseries, ''Distressed Real Estate'', produced by

Topic Studios ''Topic Studios'' is an American film production company owned by First Look Media. The company is known for producing films '' Leave No Trace'' (2018), ''Luce'' (2019), '' The Climb'' (2019), ''The Mauritanian'' (2021). The company also produces ...

Bibliography

*''Real Estate Damages: An Analysis of Detrimental Conditions'' (1999) () *''Property Owners Manual'' (2004) () *''Owners Manual'' (2004) *''Business Owners Manual'' (2004) () *''Home Owners Manual'' (2004) () *''Disasters: Wasted Lives, Valuable Lessons'' (2005) () *''Strategy 360: 10 Steps for Creating a Complete Game Plan for Business & Life'' (2008) () *''Rich Habits Rich Life'' (2016) () *''Me We Do Be: The Four Cornerstones of Success'' (2017) () *''Leo Fender: The Quiet Giant Heart Around the World'' (2017) () *''Post-Traumatic Thriving'' (2021) ()

Personal life

Randall Bell lives in

Laguna Beach, California Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish language, Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservat ...

with his wife and has four children. Bell volunteers at the Laguna Beach homeless and rehabilitation center, Friendship Shelter.

Early life and education

Career

Bibliography

Personal life

References

Further reading