Cari Luna is Jewish by heritage and Buddhist by religion. She meditates regularly. Yet when she and her husband put their Brooklyn, N.Y., house on the market this year and offers kept falling through, Ms. Luna turned to an unlikely source for help: St. Joseph.

Some choose to bury St. Joseph upside down.

The Catholic saint has long been believed to help with home-related matters. And according to lore now spreading on the Internet and among desperate home-sellers, burying St. Joseph in the yard of a home for sale promises a prompt bid. After Ms. Luna and her husband held five open houses, even baking cookies for one of them, she ordered a St. Joseph "real estate kit" online and buried the three-inch white statue in her yard.

"I wasn't sure if it would be disrespectful for me, a Jewish Buddhist, to co-opt this saint for my real-estate purposes," says Ms. Luna, a writer. She figured, "Well, could it hurt?"

With the worst housing market in recent years, St. Joseph is enjoying a flurry of attention. Some vendors of religious supplies say St. Joseph statues are flying off the shelves as an increasing number of skeptics and non-Catholics look for some saintly intervention to help them sell their houses.

Some Realtors, too, swear by the practice. Ardell DellaLoggia, a Seattle-area Realtor, buried a statue beneath the "For Sale" sign on a property that she thought was overpriced. She didn't tell the owner until after it had sold. "He was an atheist," she explains. "But he thanked me."

Existing-home sales fell 8% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04 million units, the lowest level in nearly 10 years, according to the National Association of Realtors.

DISCUSS

 

Some Catholic clergy are uncomfortable with the St. Joseph's trend.¹ Read about this and track other news in the housing market at Developments,² WSJ.com's new real-estate tracker.

Statues of St. Joseph sold online can be as tall as 12 inches. One, made of colored resin, portrays St. Joseph cradling the baby Jesus. Yet most home sellers favor the simpler three- or four- inch replicas -- most of which are made in China and often depict St. Joseph as a carpenter.

Most statues come in a "Home Sale Kit" that is priced at around $5 and includes burial instructions and a prayer. One site, Good Fortune Online, recently added another kit with a statue of St. Jude -- known as the patron saint of hopeless causes -- "to help those with a difficult property to sell," the site says. Another site, Stjosephstatue.com, takes orders for its "Underground Real Estate Agent Kits" at 1-888-BURY-JOE.

Demand for the statues has been growing. Ron Weissman, who sells the statues at Good Fortune Online, says about six months ago he switched to online transactions because the increase in calls -- from about two a week to 25 calls a day -- was too much to handle. Richard Weigang, owner of www.catholicstore.com³, says he sells about 400 statues a month, double the amount he sold a year ago.

In Catholicism, St. Joseph, a carpenter, is honored as the husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus. Representing a humble family man, he is the patron saint of home, family and house-hunting, according to the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of "My Life With the Saints." Popular belief holds that people who wish to enlist St. Joseph's help in selling a house should bury his replica upside-down in the yard. (Apartment dwellers are advised to put him in a potted plant.)

Methods of burying the statue vary. Instructions in one package give buyers several options, including burying it upside-down next to the "For Sale" sign, burying it three feet from the rear of the house and burying it next to the front door facing away from the home. Phil Cates, owner of stjosephstatue.com, says: "I've seen it buried in all types of places with all types of ceremonies." He says the detailed burial instructions are largely intended to prevent people from forgetting where they put their St. Joseph. (His kits advise burying it facing it away from the house, to symbolize leaving.)

Theologians say there's no official doctrine that calls for the statue's interment. The practice may have stemmed from medieval rites of land possession, in which conquerors claimed land by planting a cross or banner, says Jaime Lara, associate professor of Christian Art and Architecture at Yale Divinity School. Mr. Lara also suggests that the tradition may have gotten mixed up at some point with folklore surrounding St. Anthony. St. Anthony, known as a matchmaker, would often be held ransom, upside-down, until he found a husband for someone's daughter, he says.

Some clergy aren't sure how St. Joseph would feel about his replica ending up on its head in the dirt, and suggest displaying it somewhere in the house instead.

"I think it's much more respectful than burying the poor guy," says Msgr. Andrew Connell, the archdiocesan director of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Boston. Some retailers, such as Mr. Weigang, owner of www.catholicstore.com, also encourage buyers to put the statues in the house.

"We don't advocate burying," he says. "Some of those statues are quite beautiful."

Catholic leaders also say that faith and devotion are necessary, in addition to burying a statue, otherwise the practice amounts to little more than superstition or magic. But they are also enjoying the saint's newfound popularity. "If they have a good result and they think it was St. Joseph, it might inspire them to practice more," says Msgr. Connell.

The St. Joseph "Underground Real Estate Agent Kit" from www.stjosephstatue.com4

Once someone's home sells, the custom holds, the statue should be dug up and put in a place of honor in the new home. That's what Ms. Luna did after she and her husband sold their house shortly after burying St. Joseph. She put the statue in her office in their new home in Portland, Ore.

But not everyone is aware of the follow-up step. Trudy Lopez and her husband buried a statue of St. Joseph when they were trying to sell their condo, even though Ms. Lopez is Jewish and her husband is a nonpracticing Catholic. They sneaked out late at night, worried they might be breaking a condo association rule.

"And I'm thinking, 'If my family knew what I am doing, they'd die,' " she says.

Soon they got an offer, but didn't realize they were supposed to bring the statue with them to their new home.

"I'm afraid a lot of the statues won't be unearthed and someone will go over St. Joseph's feet with a lawnmower," says Father Martin.

Sept Home Starts, Permits Fall to 14 - Year Lows

Source: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. - MLS Resale Data
Copyright 2007 - Information deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed.

From: 09/01/2007 to 09/30/2007               

Source: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. - MLS Resale Data
Copyright 2007 - Information deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed.

From: 09/01/2007 to 09/30/2007               

Source: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. - MLS Resale Data
Copyright 2007 - Information deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed.

From: 09/01/2007 to 09/30/2007               

Source: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. - MLS Resale Data
Copyright 2007 - Information deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed.

 
From: 09/01/2007 to 09/30/2007               

Source: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. - MLS Resale Data
Copyright 2007 - Information deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed.

From: 09/01/2007 to 09/30/2007               

Source: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. - MLS Resale Data
Copyright 2007 - Information deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed.

From: 09/01/2007 to 09/30/2007            

Source: Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. - MLS Resale Data
Copyright 2007 - Information deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed.

Sniffles That Precede a Recession

By Tim Foley

The results turn out three types of markets and three types of deals.

Attractive Arrangements
The first are undervalued, affordable markets like Fort Worth, Texas, which haven't felt huge, post-boom price corrections, but where there is an expected acceleration in sales volume, making now the time to buy.

Second are markets like Long Island, N.Y., and Washington D.C. These are traditionally strong areas that are recovering from speculation, especially in the D.C. condo market and by Long Island's second-home buyers. Once these areas stabilize, the market as a whole should return to health.

"Long Island is continuing to slip, but a modest amount," says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, a New York-based real estate appraisal and consultancy firm. "In [Long Island] the upper-end market was the market of choice for speculation and tear downs."

Third are riskier markets such as Las Vegas or Orlando, Fla., which are experiencing lending and inventory problems but relative to regional markets--in Las Vegas' case, Los Angeles and in Orlando's case Tampa and Miami--are expecting to see significant pickups in sales activity, according to Moody's, and therefore become better buyers' markets because of a relatively lower risk.

But economists caution that while over the next year the dust may settle in these 10 spots, buyers should be prepared for future swings. This is especially true in the case of riskier markets like Orlando and Las Vegas, where the expected increase in sales volume and housing turnover doesn't necessarily mean that the price trough is imminent.

"Housing market activity revives when house prices decline sufficiently to restore housing affordability and entice buyers to step up and make a purchase," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Some markets are already approaching those price points, in many others prices will have to decline much more to get to that point."

Rehab Math: What's a Plus, What's a Minus

By Sandra Fleishman
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, September 30, 2007; R11

What does remodeling add to the value of a house?

Not as much as it did a couple years ago, according to an upcoming survey.

Remodeling magazine's annual "Cost vs. Value Report" is to be published Nov. 1, so up-to-date information on how much bang you can get for each buck invested in rehab projects isn't public yet. But magazine editorial director Sal Alfano said the raw numbers indicate that the days of seeing returns of at least 80 cents to 90 cents for each dollar invested in renovations are mostly behind us.

The record-high returns on remodeling investments in 2004 and 2005 are history, Alfano said. In 2007, just 14 percent of remodeling projects had a return of at least 75 percent. That was down from 16 percent in 2006 and 20 percent in 2005.

The best return in 2007 came from replacing old siding with fiber-cement material: Homeowners got an average of 88.1 cents for each dollar invested after they sold their houses. Fiber-cement siding also brought the best results in 2006, at 88 cents to the dollar. But bigger remodeling projects involving kitchens and bathrooms apparently no longer guarantee the giant returns of previous years.

The 2007 decline "reflects the slowdown in the real estate market" and high materials costs, Alfano said in an e-mail. The return is not bad, he said, because homeowners are paying "12 cents and 43 cents on the dollar to remodel [their] home," depending on the type of project being done. And, he said, "you get the use of the newly remodeled space until you sell."

Local real estate agents and remodeling companies say they see similar slippage in the Washington area, where renovations generally beat the national averages for value added to the home.

"It used to be -- a couple, three years ago -- that kitchen remodels were over the 100 percent range, like 149 percent" in the Washington area, "but I believe it's now under 90," said Tim Burch of Burch Builders Group in Warrenton.

He said, however, "I still advise my clients that any renovations, but particularly kitchens, baths and master suites, are still worth doing because they're investments that you get to enjoy."

Upgrades still make an impact even in a market that's flooded with new homes and resale inventory, he maintains.

"The ones that have renovated are the ones that are selling," he said. "And what better way to wait out this market than to be in your beautiful kitchen?"

David Merrick, owner of Merrick Design & Build of Kensington, said it does not pay to try to outplay the market.

If the market is hot, "adding a bathroom doesn't matter" much in resale value because people will pay almost anything just to get a house, he said. In a slower market, buyers may be looking at criteria other than a property's condition, he said.

"Where I work, a lot of the price is related to the school district," Merrick said. "A house can cost $200,000 more just because you've crossed the school-district line. So whether there is a new bath or kitchen doesn't matter."

A property must be usable and presentable to sell, he said, so repairs are important. Sometimes paint and de-cluttering are enough, he said, but sometimes a house just looks dated.

Before spending more than you can get back, though, he suggests talking to a real estate agent familiar with the neighborhood. "You have to look at these on a case-by-case basis," he said.

A key consideration in deciding whether to rehab before listing is whether prospective buyers can afford to do the renovation work, said Gary H. Ditto, a Long & Foster Real Estate agent in Bethesda.

Ditto recently had a client selling a house for $830,000 that needed about $125,000 in renovations, he said. Rather than make the changes and price the house at $1 million to get back the investment, the owner decided to sell for less and assume that a buyer in that price range could handle upgrades.

That strategy would not work in a more modest neighborhood, Ditto said. "When purchasers don't have a lot of cash, they don't want to buy and then have to do the repairs that are needed."

Deciding whether to rehab before selling "really depends on how bad your kitchen and baths are," said Christopher Landis of Landis Construction in the District. Adding square footage through renovations "gets you every dollar back," he said.

Real estate investor Joe Rinker can testify to that, and to how the overall housing market has led to some rethinking of how much to spend on renovations.

Rinker, a real estate agent and the owner of a Montgomery County renovation company, has refurbished about 15 houses for resale in the past three years. When the market was white-hot, he said, "I didn't have to worry about material costs" because buyers would pay whatever was necessary.

"As the market has eased, I still use quality materials; I still almost always use granite in most kitchen renovations, for instance," he said, but he is not as determined to hit the high end on everything anymore. "All these reports saying people are now getting 80 percent return on kitchens and baths, I think they're too high. With all the competition, it's probably in the 60s to 70s now."

He said he remains sold on the value of capturing "found space" in renovation projects. Houses with unfinished basements, attics and porches are golden -- if the rehab does not cost more than the neighborhood can bear, he said.

"You get more bang for the buck by finishing off a basement, especially if you can finish it off and add a bathroom at the same time," he said.