Many Turn To Higher Power For Home Sales

WKMG TV NEWS ^ | 9-19-2006

[Cagey]

BOSTON -- In order to sell a house these days, people are looking for all the help they can get.

A Boston area real estate agent is among those who've turned to a saint. And she believes it worked.

Facing a slow market -- and a house with a steep driveway -- agent Judy Moore turned to a St. Joseph figurine. She buried it in the yard, head down. And she soon had a buyer.

Moore isn't alone in turning to St. Joseph. Stores nationwide that sell religious goods say sales of his statues are way up. They come with varying instructions, but they all boil down to burying the statue in the yard or near the "for sale" sign -- then saying a prayer for a buyer.

Linking St. Joseph to real estate goes back to the 16th century, when a nun buried his medal and prayed to him for help in getting land for convents.

These days, one theology professor has a more simple explanation: "In times of crisis," he says, "people try anything."

[Cagey]

DOES ST. JOSEPH HELP SELL? Survey (at linked source): Ever Buried St. Joseph Statue?

[AppyPappy]

I'll take my house off the market before I engage in voodoo.

[martin_fierro]

Patron Saints index

[Deguello]

I guess those bathtub shrines in the front yards weren't doing the trick?

[Cagey]

From Snopes: The last line is hystericaly funny.

The custom of burying St. Joseph has become so widespread that some religious goods stores even offer a Home Sale Kit, which includes a plastic statue, a prayer card, and an introduction to the St. Joseph home sale practice.
Prudent realtors also recommend the following advice in addition to burying Joe: "For this practice to be fully effective, the seller must, of course, first do such practical yet all important chores as completing all necessary fix-up, properly staging the home and finally, adjusting the price so as to exactly reflect market value."

Many who have experienced difficulty selling their homes have reported seemingly miraculous sales shortly after burying a statue of St. Joseph on their property. Stephen Binz's 2003 book, Saint Joseph, My Real Estate Agent, is replete with many such examples. However, one tale included in the book — which might well be apocryphal — points that everything doesn't always go as planned. One impatient man moved his statue from the frontyard to the backyard to the side of the house and finally threw it in the trash. A few days later the frustrated seller opened the newspaper and saw the headline "Local Dump Has Been Sold."

[RexBeach]

I had a client use this method and it worked great! The house went unsold for months. She placed St. Joseph in the front yard and got an offer three days later!

[the invisib1e hand]

I'll take my house off the market before I engage in voodoo.

is any act of faith "voodoo" in your book, or just the ones you don't agree with?

[BipolarBob]

You aren't serious about selling a house unless you are willing to slit a goats throat in the light of the full moon while reading from the Egyptian The Book of The Dead.

[tx_eggman]

Judy Moore turned to a St. Joseph figurine. She buried it in the yard, head down.

This alone is enough to convince me that Judy's head is firmly planted in an anatomical location where the sun doesn't shine ...

[Gay State Conservative]

If I'm looking to sell to a muslim,do I bury a picture of that mohammed clown and his nine year old wife?

[mtbopfuyn]

Head down? Poor, Joe!

[Wolfie]

Bury one on the day it goes on the market, then report back.

[Axenolith]

Hopefully, there's no aluminum or copper on these things. I don't need to be digging them up from 2 feet metal detecting, all the while thinking I'm about to haul in a cache of Morgans...

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I thought you were supposed to bury St. Anthony? He's the Patron Saint of lost things and my Catholic friends insisted we were "looking for a buyer".

Either way, St. Anthony is buried in my old front yard on PA, where I sold the house on the very day we buried him.

And no, I'm not Catholic, I did it for my friends.

[mmyers]

When I closed on my house the seller gave me the keys and went to her trunk and pulled out a shovel. She went to the garden area and dug up a St. After 2 1/2 years I now have 500,000 in equity.

[Obadiah]

I'll take my house off the market before I engage in voodoo.

Oh, my gosh. I have heard about this from family members, and I chided them saying that they should have simply called a witch doctor. Unbelievable, really staggering, that otherwise intelligent people have become susceptible to this. How far we have fallen spiritually as a nation.

[pikachu]

The instructions in the 'kit' my ex-mother-in-law sent said to burry the statue head down. House did not sell for a year after that. For a while I was comptempalting burrying the real estate agent head down after she kept screwing up the listing/

[PandaRosaMishima]

Can I use the Necronomicon too?

[BipolarBob]

And that proves . . . . . . ?

[linda_22003]

"Have become", like it's a recent thing? People were doing this in Boston thirty years ago, when I lived there, and it wasn't new then.