by Monte Lee-Wen

 

 

 

Remember the last time you saw a priest in an old black and white movie? Sooner or later he was going to say, "Saints preserve us" in an Irish brogue.

Now we have home sellers in markets across the nation calling on the same divine intervention...

With housing sales falling 8% in September of this year to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04M units -- the lowest level in 10 years -- residential sellers are looking for miracles to sell their house.

The latest craze reported in last week's Wall Street Journal is actually calling on Saints Joseph and Jude to help get an offer on your house.

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Here's how this supposedly works...

St. Joseph is the patron saint of carpenters and has long been associated with household matters. Now the urban myth has it that St. Joseph will obtain a quick and generous offer for your listing if you bury him upside down in the yard !

St. Jude is the patron saint of "hopeless causes" and some doubly faithful sellers are tossing one of him in the hole as well.

Websites are sprouting up offering St. Joseph "Kits" ... proving yet again that no one ever lost money underestimating the taste of the American People. They basically consist of a plastic figurine and a set of instructions on how to bury him.

Just in case you have a house languishing unsold and would like to put a saint or two on your side ... here are a couple of those websites.

1) Statues are 25% off here or you can by them 24 at a time:
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=takajgcab.0.0.zfvxytbab.0&ts=S0295&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodfortuneonline.net%2F&id=preview

2) This one even calls St. Joseph the "Underground Real Estate Agent":
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=takajgcab.0.0.zfvxytbab.0&ts=S0295&p=http%3A%2F%2Fstjosephstatue.com%2F&id=preview

3) This site gives the history of the practice of burying St. Joseph to sell your house:
http ://www.luckymojo.com/saintjoseph.html

4) Lastly, this site gives detailed instructions including several prayers - in both English and Latin - as you cover him up
http: //www.fisheaters.com/stjoestatue.html

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This is just another sign of how far the residential market has sunk recently.

Unfortunately we are nowhere near the bottom and the Fed is just as scared now of a Recession as it was the last time it cut rates.

How long will the residential swoon last ... everyone's crystal ball is too cloudy for a prediction.

Until it does make the turn, let's pray for all the residential folks who have property for sale and keep looking for those select Multifamily markets that will turn out to be the biggest winners.