When It Takes a Miracle To Sell Your House Owners, Realtors Bury Statues Of St. Joseph to Attract Buyers; Don't Forget to Dig Him Up
By SARA SCHAEFER MUÑOZn October 30, 2007
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.
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.com, 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.com
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
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
QUICK CHANGE NEW YORKERS ADJUST TO THE NEW MARKET
By MAX GROSS, New York Post October 18, 2007 -- THERE'S something of a Twilight Zone dynamic to New York City real estate. While the rest of the country writhes in mortgage agony, much of New York seems to be bouncing like a carefree 8-year-old on a trampoline.
This is especially surprising, given how dire the future seemed just a month ago. People were holding their breath, tightening their belts and preparing for Armageddon. It never came. (Or, at least, it hasn't come yet.) And it won't
When we recently canvassed several top brokers at major real-estate firms, many reported that the rug hadn't been pulled out at all - and some even said business has improved.
"I'd say traffic has more than doubled than this time last year, which is beyond comprehension," says Prudential Douglas Elliman vice chairman Dolly Lenz.
"The interesting effect on the market is that it truly made the - well, it's hard to say 'low-end' because it really isn't low-end - but less-expensive buyer jump to buy," Lenz says.
"It used to be that buyers could put down 5 percent or 10 percent and, provided they were employed and provided they were breathing, they could get a loan. Now, it's at least 20 percent down and income verification. And so for things that are up to $6 million, people are [buying quickly] because the fear is that now it's 20 percent - next it'll be 30 percent. Next 40 percent."
With buyers like this in the market, sales appear to be brisk.
"I'd say the pall has lifted," says Barbara Fox, president of Fox Residential Group. "All of a sudden, things that we hadn't been able to sell over the summer are selling."
"We had 45 percent more sales than the same time last year," says Hall Willkie, president of Brown Harris Stevens, of his firm's third quarter. "Prices are up in every category, and the market has been very strong."
Of course, most of the third-quarter sales figures were for properties that went to contract before the subprime market melted down, but Willkie notes that Brown Harris Stevens has seen roughly the same number of signed contracts last month as the firm did last September.
And it's difficult to argue with the numbers: Market data that came out last week showed that Manhattan condos had reached a record average price of more than $1.6 million.
Things are heating up in the outer boroughs as well.
"I am busier than ever!" says Brooklyn broker Rodolfo Lucchese, who works out of the Corcoran Group's Fort Greene office. "Bidding wars, all-cash offers."
Late last month, Brown Harris Stevens opened the sales office for Hunters Point Condos, a new development in Long Island City, and sold 40 units (20 percent of its inventory) on the first day.
But no statistics or anecdotes can speak for our entire diverse market. It would be foolish not to acknowledge that some things have changed. And there are, no doubt, would-be buyers who've adjusted their expectations or temporarily taken themselves out of the game.
"I've had several buyers who reduced their price range," says Prudential Douglas Elliman broker Tamir Shemesh, "but I've always had that . . . If someone was looking at about $10 million, now they're looking in the range of $6 million, $7 million. One client looking to upgrade decided to hold off."
But Shemesh adds that inventory is still incredibly tight and that he's seen bidding wars.
NYP Home also spoke to numerous buyers about their confidence in the market and how their plans have been altered. Here are their stories.
Bite the bullet
Some buyers who started the process in the middle of the summer had to grin and bear the subprime market's blowup, even if they weren't subprime borrowers.
James Moore and Sara Nardi signed a contract for an Upper East Side two-bedroom for $995,000 back in June. But as they waited to close, they saw rates shoot up like crazy.
"We were a little panicked," says Nardi. "The banks got really tight and until the 12th hour they were examining everything with a fine-tooth comb. We had to have letters signed from our parents and financial statements."
Moore and Nardi had not locked in their rate when the meltdown hit, so they bit the bullet and locked in . . . at exactly the wrong time. When the Fed lowered rates, the rate they had secured didn't look so good anymore.
"We were actually in a position of locking in a rate and then when the rates went down, having to buy points [to lower their rate]," Nardi says. "We wound up spending an additional $17,000 to buy two points - but we did the math and it evens itself out over four years."
Summer panic aside, Nardi and Moore are confident that they got a good deal on the apartment they found with Halstead Property broker Jill Sloane.
"It's close to the East River, it's got a doorman, the lobby's completely renovated and in the back they're renovating a huge garden," says Nardi. "I only wished they allowed pets."
Time to rent ... a condo
Lucia Panzarella wanted an apartment with outdoor space and more room than her Midtown apartment. She and her husband were going to buy last spring, and began touring apartments on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side before taking a break from home shopping in the summer.
When the summer credit crunch came, they decided to rent instead. They found a 2,200-square-foot duplex penthouse condo in Harlem through their Halstead Property broker, Julia Boland. The owners had originally wanted to sell the home but couldn't find a buyer. Panzarella and her husband signed a one-year lease.
"I definitely think things are starting to appear to be stabilizing," says Panzarella, who has taken herself out of the market for the foreseeable future.
"We're definitely going to be watching the market," she says. "If it works more in our favor and we find something similar to this place, we could buy."
In the meantime, she loves her rental.
Make an offer ... that could be refused
"My offers will be below asking price," says Ben Schaye, a lawyer and recent transplant from Chicago, who is actively looking for a one-bedroom somewhere in Midtown/Hell's Kitchen.
Schaye, who has been looking on his own and with Manhattan Apartments broker Farrah Mogh, figures that things are still somewhat overpriced. "In a month or two months time [my offers] are probably going to be what they're asking for ... The asking prices haven't begun to reflect what the apartments are really worth."
So far, Schaye has been making offers as much as 15 to 20 percent below asking prices and, surprisingly, he has gotten nibbles from sellers. One of his offers was rejected out of fear that the co-op board wouldn't accept it, but the seller seemed satisfied with the proposed figure.
"I kind of welcomed" the credit crunch, says Schaye with a laugh. "I mean, I didn't think I would be much of a credit risk, and it would knock out some of the competitors."
Play the waiting game
"I was looking to buy - and I'm still looking to buy - but I think it's time to be cautious, to do homework," says Scott Berger.Berger, a recent transplant from California, had originally planned on purchasing something in the West Village or SoHo. He and his broker, Christina Vescovo of Halstead Property, spent much of the summer going to open houses during Berger's business trips to New York. But as his moving date approached and the credit crunch intensified, Berger decided there was really no need to hurry. He thinks that maybe a few months, or even a year, out of the game might be a good idea, giving him time to sit back, study and observe the market.
In the meantime, Berger has taken a one-bedroom rental in the East Village.
Think outside the box
Some buyers, like Michael Roggow, have decided to look outside their dream neighborhood.
"I wanted to move to Chelsea," says Roggow, who sold his house in Kew Gardens, Queens, earlier this year and began looking at properties. "Chelsea was a lot more expensive than I remember it. So what was I going to do? Live in a 350-square-foot studio? That was OK when I was 21 and just out of college, but now?"
Roggow and his broker, David Culver of Citi Habitats (above left), have decided to check out cheaper neighborhoods like Washington Heights and are waiting to see if the market will go down in the winter.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead
Buyers and sellers each have separate anxieties about the market, but for somebody like Deborah Colitti, who is both a buyer and a seller, there is a kind of preternatural calm.
Colitti found a two-bedroom penthouse in the Village back in July that she closed on last week. (She won a bidding war to get it.) And she just put her current apartment - a one-bedroom at 720 Greenwich St. - on the market with Tamir Shemesh from Prudential Douglas Elliman.
"It's been on the market 10 days, and I've already got multiple offers," says Colitti.
And Colitti says that her experience has been extremely good, all things considered.
After the subprime crash, "all the banks were frozen for that four- to six-week period," she says. "They were dotting every 'i' and crossing every 't.'"
But in the end, there were no real problems. "It just took a lot of paperwork."
Colitti is now planning a renovation for her penthouse and sifting through the offers on her old apartment.
This is especially surprising, given how dire the future seemed just a month ago. People were holding their breath, tightening their belts and preparing for Armageddon. It never came. (Or, at least, it hasn't come yet.) And it won't
When we recently canvassed several top brokers at major real-estate firms, many reported that the rug hadn't been pulled out at all - and some even said business has improved.
"I'd say traffic has more than doubled than this time last year, which is beyond comprehension," says Prudential Douglas Elliman vice chairman Dolly Lenz.
"The interesting effect on the market is that it truly made the - well, it's hard to say 'low-end' because it really isn't low-end - but less-expensive buyer jump to buy," Lenz says.
"It used to be that buyers could put down 5 percent or 10 percent and, provided they were employed and provided they were breathing, they could get a loan. Now, it's at least 20 percent down and income verification. And so for things that are up to $6 million, people are [buying quickly] because the fear is that now it's 20 percent - next it'll be 30 percent. Next 40 percent."
With buyers like this in the market, sales appear to be brisk.
"I'd say the pall has lifted," says Barbara Fox, president of Fox Residential Group. "All of a sudden, things that we hadn't been able to sell over the summer are selling."
"We had 45 percent more sales than the same time last year," says Hall Willkie, president of Brown Harris Stevens, of his firm's third quarter. "Prices are up in every category, and the market has been very strong."
Of course, most of the third-quarter sales figures were for properties that went to contract before the subprime market melted down, but Willkie notes that Brown Harris Stevens has seen roughly the same number of signed contracts last month as the firm did last September.
And it's difficult to argue with the numbers: Market data that came out last week showed that Manhattan condos had reached a record average price of more than $1.6 million.
Things are heating up in the outer boroughs as well.
"I am busier than ever!" says Brooklyn broker Rodolfo Lucchese, who works out of the Corcoran Group's Fort Greene office. "Bidding wars, all-cash offers."
Late last month, Brown Harris Stevens opened the sales office for Hunters Point Condos, a new development in Long Island City, and sold 40 units (20 percent of its inventory) on the first day.
But no statistics or anecdotes can speak for our entire diverse market. It would be foolish not to acknowledge that some things have changed. And there are, no doubt, would-be buyers who've adjusted their expectations or temporarily taken themselves out of the game.
"I've had several buyers who reduced their price range," says Prudential Douglas Elliman broker Tamir Shemesh, "but I've always had that . . . If someone was looking at about $10 million, now they're looking in the range of $6 million, $7 million. One client looking to upgrade decided to hold off."
But Shemesh adds that inventory is still incredibly tight and that he's seen bidding wars.
NYP Home also spoke to numerous buyers about their confidence in the market and how their plans have been altered. Here are their stories.
Bite the bullet
Some buyers who started the process in the middle of the summer had to grin and bear the subprime market's blowup, even if they weren't subprime borrowers.
James Moore and Sara Nardi signed a contract for an Upper East Side two-bedroom for $995,000 back in June. But as they waited to close, they saw rates shoot up like crazy.
"We were a little panicked," says Nardi. "The banks got really tight and until the 12th hour they were examining everything with a fine-tooth comb. We had to have letters signed from our parents and financial statements."
Moore and Nardi had not locked in their rate when the meltdown hit, so they bit the bullet and locked in . . . at exactly the wrong time. When the Fed lowered rates, the rate they had secured didn't look so good anymore.
"We were actually in a position of locking in a rate and then when the rates went down, having to buy points [to lower their rate]," Nardi says. "We wound up spending an additional $17,000 to buy two points - but we did the math and it evens itself out over four years."
Summer panic aside, Nardi and Moore are confident that they got a good deal on the apartment they found with Halstead Property broker Jill Sloane.
"It's close to the East River, it's got a doorman, the lobby's completely renovated and in the back they're renovating a huge garden," says Nardi. "I only wished they allowed pets."
Time to rent ... a condo
Lucia Panzarella wanted an apartment with outdoor space and more room than her Midtown apartment. She and her husband were going to buy last spring, and began touring apartments on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side before taking a break from home shopping in the summer.
When the summer credit crunch came, they decided to rent instead. They found a 2,200-square-foot duplex penthouse condo in Harlem through their Halstead Property broker, Julia Boland. The owners had originally wanted to sell the home but couldn't find a buyer. Panzarella and her husband signed a one-year lease.
"I definitely think things are starting to appear to be stabilizing," says Panzarella, who has taken herself out of the market for the foreseeable future.
"We're definitely going to be watching the market," she says. "If it works more in our favor and we find something similar to this place, we could buy."
In the meantime, she loves her rental.
Make an offer ... that could be refused
"My offers will be below asking price," says Ben Schaye, a lawyer and recent transplant from Chicago, who is actively looking for a one-bedroom somewhere in Midtown/Hell's Kitchen.
Schaye, who has been looking on his own and with Manhattan Apartments broker Farrah Mogh, figures that things are still somewhat overpriced. "In a month or two months time [my offers] are probably going to be what they're asking for ... The asking prices haven't begun to reflect what the apartments are really worth."
So far, Schaye has been making offers as much as 15 to 20 percent below asking prices and, surprisingly, he has gotten nibbles from sellers. One of his offers was rejected out of fear that the co-op board wouldn't accept it, but the seller seemed satisfied with the proposed figure.
"I kind of welcomed" the credit crunch, says Schaye with a laugh. "I mean, I didn't think I would be much of a credit risk, and it would knock out some of the competitors."
Play the waiting game
"I was looking to buy - and I'm still looking to buy - but I think it's time to be cautious, to do homework," says Scott Berger.Berger, a recent transplant from California, had originally planned on purchasing something in the West Village or SoHo. He and his broker, Christina Vescovo of Halstead Property, spent much of the summer going to open houses during Berger's business trips to New York. But as his moving date approached and the credit crunch intensified, Berger decided there was really no need to hurry. He thinks that maybe a few months, or even a year, out of the game might be a good idea, giving him time to sit back, study and observe the market.
In the meantime, Berger has taken a one-bedroom rental in the East Village.
Think outside the box
Some buyers, like Michael Roggow, have decided to look outside their dream neighborhood.
"I wanted to move to Chelsea," says Roggow, who sold his house in Kew Gardens, Queens, earlier this year and began looking at properties. "Chelsea was a lot more expensive than I remember it. So what was I going to do? Live in a 350-square-foot studio? That was OK when I was 21 and just out of college, but now?"
Roggow and his broker, David Culver of Citi Habitats (above left), have decided to check out cheaper neighborhoods like Washington Heights and are waiting to see if the market will go down in the winter.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead
Buyers and sellers each have separate anxieties about the market, but for somebody like Deborah Colitti, who is both a buyer and a seller, there is a kind of preternatural calm.
Colitti found a two-bedroom penthouse in the Village back in July that she closed on last week. (She won a bidding war to get it.) And she just put her current apartment - a one-bedroom at 720 Greenwich St. - on the market with Tamir Shemesh from Prudential Douglas Elliman.
"It's been on the market 10 days, and I've already got multiple offers," says Colitti.
And Colitti says that her experience has been extremely good, all things considered.
After the subprime crash, "all the banks were frozen for that four- to six-week period," she says. "They were dotting every 'i' and crossing every 't.'"
But in the end, there were no real problems. "It just took a lot of paperwork."
Colitti is now planning a renovation for her penthouse and sifting through the offers on her old apartment.
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