Sellers turn to prayer in bid to close deal

The St Joseph mini-figure and prayer card promises to help you offload your property quick smart.
Photograph: Cyril Byrne

PROPERTY: WITH THE autumn property "selling" season about to start, all's fair in bricks and mortar when it comes to getting the edge on the competition,writes Edel Morgan

In a difficult market, spending a small fortune on a complete refurb will only get you so far, so it could be time to pull out the stops and ask for intervention from the patron saint of property, St Joseph

Big business in the US, the St Joseph mini-figure and prayer card promises to help you offload your property quick smart. A kit distributed by a Seattle company advises that to invoke the full power of St Joseph you must bury the plastic figurine upside down near the "For Sale" sign while reciting the prayer: "Most holy St Joseph, I beseech thee to intercede on my behalf to help me find a worthy buyer for my home, preferably one who will pay full price and waive inspection. Amen."

And lest you think this is a gimmick, a US-based group called the Catholic Community Forum endorses the practice in the patron saints index of its website www.catholic-forum.com. It says the tradition can be traced back as far St Teresa of Avila who prayed that St Joseph would intercede to obtain land for Christian converts. St Joseph had more than a few property woes of his own and knew all about the stresses of finding a home for his family - who can forget the manger and his experience of being turned away from various inns? The website warns against overpriced kits advising, "the size and the cost of the statue doesn't matter, and has no relation the size or cost of the property".

That should come as a relief to anyone thinking of selling their homes on Howth Head or Killiney Hill who was envisioning having to bury a Statue of Liberty-sized Joseph in their front gardens to shift their home.

And once St Joseph does a stint as your second, and potentially more effective, estate agent, and sells your home, it's apparently vital that you dig up the statuette and give it a place of honour in your new abode.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times