Selling Your House with a Little Help from Joe

About three years ago, my aunt was listening to a New Jersey radio station.  It was a talk show about real estate, and a listener had called in to offer a word of advice to others.

The caller had had a house on the market for over a year, and someone had told her to get a small statue of St. Joseph.  She was told to bury the statue in her front yard, head down, facing the road.  If she did this, she was told, her home would sell almost immediately.  As soon as the closing was going to happen for certain, she should dig up the statue and clean him off.  The caller did what her friend had told her to do, and sure enough, she had a buyer and closed on her home within a month.  My aunt heard the story and passed it onto my mom.

My mom had retired from her job and was in the process of buying and building the home where she lives now.  The house we had lived in had been on the market for over a year.  Desperate to get rid of the house and the extra expense, she was willing to try anything, including burying a statue of St. Joseph.  If she couldn't sell the house, she could no longer continue to do work on the new home.

So, she buried St. Joseph in the front yard, head down, facing the road.  Within a month she had a buyer and had to dig up the statue and clean him off so that she could go to closing.  Now the only expense she had was the trailer.

The trailer was Mom's vacation spot in the Pocono Mountains.  That, too, had been on the market, as with the new mountain home much further away (and no kids at home) she would no longer need it to "get away."  Since the trailer had been on the market for over a year with no results, she decided to try using the statue of St. Joseph once again.  After all, it had seemed to help before.

You guessed it!  Within a month, Mom had to dig up St. Joseph so that she could go to closing for the trailer.

I asked my mom, "What do you think the significance is of burying him head down and facing the road?"

She replied, "It is not for me to question why or how.  All I know is that he did a good job for me!"

She may be right.

----     Rev. Nancy Leigh Jobes
                 freelance writer for