Florida Sellers Look For Divine Intervention
If your house has been on the market for a while, and you haven’t gotten much interest from prospective buyers, maybe you should think outside the box a little… consider enlisting the help of a higher power.
We mean a really higher power.
More than a few sellers in the dormant Southwest Florida real estate market are doing just that, and have appealed to St. Joseph for help selling their house. According to a local tradition at least 200 years old, sellers bury a statue of St. Joseph in their yard, appeal to him for a successful sale, and leave him there until the deal is done.
With a slower economic outlook and a glut of inventory on the market, they may need this divine help. With real estate coming off a five-year boom in Sarasota, Bradenton and vicinity. In short, houses are taking longer to move. Single-home sales in Manatee and Sarasota counties are down 40 percent from 2005, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.
In turn, St. Joseph statues, affectionately called “Joes” by those in the real estate trade, have seen booming sales.
“We sold about 60 (Joes) so far this year. That’s unusual. We don’t usually sell that many,” said Jackie Deemer of the Sarasota Association of Realtors.
With fewer prospective buyers making offers, sellers are doing everything they can to get an edge. As our Realtors. Like many realty groups in the region, the Manatee Association of Realtors regularly stocks St. Joseph statues along with its standard open house signs and books about real estate. They believe in the magic themselves. Some Realtors have buried St. Joseph statues when selling their own homes.
“I buried a St. Joseph on the day we listed our house in Chicago in 1995, and it was sold in two weeks,” said Jon Dobner, a Realtor at Century 21 Advantage in Bradenton.
Jeannie Olsen, a Realtor with Re/Max in Lakewood Ranch, also buried a St. Joseph when her house in the Inlets had been on the market for about a year without a sale.
“I put a St. Joe’s in and said a prayer, and within a couple of months I had a buyer,” Olsen said.
Superstition and tradition are fascinating. What does the church think of all this? The Rev. Edward Moretti, of Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles Roman Catholic Church in Bradenton, says it’s an expression of faith, which is what’s important, not the physical act.
“Religious articles are there to remind us of things we cannot see. People can still ask for help in selling their houses. They don’t have to go burying statues,” he said.
But for some sellers, it can’t hurt. The housing market in most of South Florida and elsewhere is “adjusting” to a more “normalized” market after five years of fast-paced growth. Naples has posted a 48 percent decline in single-family homes sales compared to last year, an even steeper decline than seen in the Manatee/Sarasota area.
“It’s quiet out there. Buyers are playing a wait-and-see game, seeing how much sellers will reduce prices,” Dobner said.
You can appeal to St. Joseph all you want, but in the end, negotiation is the key. When making an offer on a house, buyers will want to get the fair market value, of course, but not make sellers feel insulted. Communication is vital, as is doing the necessary research. With Florida mortgage loan rates significantly higher than a year ago, fewer people are buying and there are more homes to choose from. This is the time to get a deal!
