Can St. Joseph Help You Sell Your Home?

What? Who is St. Joseph, you ask? Well, most people know that Biblically, Joseph was a carpenter and Jesus’s earthly father. Joseph was long ago declared the Patron Saint of Carpentry. In modern times, he is often referred to as the Patron Saint of Real Estate. Call it tradition, folklore or superstition, many believe that burying a small statuette of St. Joseph can help your home sell faster.

How does it work, you ask? The most common answer to that is simple. Bury your St. Joseph, head down, near the For Sale sign in your yard and facing in the direction of where you wish to move. Live in a condo or patio home with no yard? Easy, bury him in a flower pot.  Once your house is sold, dig up St. Joseph and move him with you, displaying him in a place of honor in your new home.

Do people actually believe in this, you ask? Curious to find out myself, I took to the ever so scientific research pool of Facebook and asked my friends if they had ever heard of this method of speeding up the process or even tried it. The response was varied, as one can imagine. Several friends shared personal stories of trying this themselves or knew of friends who had tried. Some of my fellow realtors make it a habit of giving a statuette to every seller whose house they have the opportunity to list. A pastor I know believes it is only superstition, as do several other friends who responded.

My friend Krista shared her story. “We had our house for sale for eight months. During that time we had a buyer’s loan fall through, and a buyer back out at the last minute. My mother-in-law had the statue blessed and buried it in our yard without telling my husband. He doesn’t believe in praying to idols. The first couple came back, and we accepted their offer within a week of when she buried it. My husband still won’t admit it was due to the statue. In those eight months before she buried it, we didn’t show the house once.”

Another friend, Kristen, also has had a positive experience using St. Joseph multiple times. “My staunch, Catholic mother-in-law got us one when we were trying to sell our house in NJ when I was pregnant with the boys. We listed in November. Matt was going to start his new job in Ohio in the Spring, and by Jan we still had no bites. Buried our statue (skeptical, but desperate), and people came during a snowstorm in mid-Feb, and we closed in mid-March. We dug him up when we moved and buried him again when we put our second house on the market, and it sold in 10 days (again-during a snow storm, and this time far faster than we anticipated-we wound up in a rental for seven months!)”

These are just a couple of examples of St. Joseph seemingly helping these friends. But is it divine intervention or simply coincidence? I had a pretty equal distribution of proponents and naysayers in the responses I received in that oh-so-scientific survey. Regardless, nothing sells a house for more money and faster than a highly skilled real estate professional. Although, if you list your house for sale, give ole St. Joe a try. It certainly can’t hurt!