- Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants - https://millersamuel.com -

It’s St. Joseph’s Day – What Does It Tell Us About Housing Trends?

wsj3-14stjoseph [1]
[Source: WSJ]

Last week I can across Sanette Tanaka’s WSJ column “Spreadsheet” titled “Bless Our Happy Home Sale [2]” that talked about the tradition regarding St. Joseph. I waited to blog about it until today since March 19th is actually St. Joseph’s Day (BTW: who is getting any work done this week with 3/17 St Patrick’s, 3/18 March Madness brackets and now this?).

I love the phrase within the WSJ graphic: “Faith in Action.”

I previously wrote about this here in September 2005 [3] and in October 2007 [4].

Traditionally, Joseph, the husband of Mary, is hailed as the patron saint of home and family. Some believe that burying a statue of St. Joseph in the yard helps sell a house.

Here’s how it the process works when selling your home:

  1. Bury the St. Joseph statue upside-down in your yard, facing toward the house listed for sale.

  2. Sell the house.

  3. The Seller digs up the statue and puts it in the new home in a special place.

The last 4 years of statue sales show a pattern consistent with NAR’s existing home sale pattern with the housing market rebound beginning in 2011.

Who says housing trend analysis is devoid of emotion. Got it?