We're moving to Nashville. I'm teaching two classes through the local university, and I'm teaching them to high school students, the really motivated ones who want to do well, so I've got the best of both worlds. Did I mention that we're moving to Nashville? Where they have restaurants that aren't Applebee's or O'Charley's or Red Lobster? And more than one grocery store? I'm really looking forward to being in the city, in case I haven't made that clear yet.
But moving requires selling our home, and getting a house ready to sell is exhausting. Time-consuming. Overwhelming. Especially since my husband already resides in Nashville, since the job he accepted required him to start December 1.
Because I'm stuck with the awful task of making our house look move-in ready at the drop of a pin, I've been giving some thought to ways I could lessen my burden. I don't want to ignore my students and let my classes slide, so I've turned my thoughts on the whole house-selling situation. And I think I've found the perfect solution.
We just need to sell our house fast.
I know, I know -- the housing market hasn't been so hot lately, and sales have been sluggish across the U.S. But this is Kentucky, and sales have slowed some here, but since we didn't have the super-hot market, we didn't have the super-ugly slump either.
I've got the power of a secret weapon anyway. Well, maybe. Sort of.
I'm going to buy into the superstition of burying St. Joseph in my yard to make my house sell faster. Only my way has a bit of a twist.
According to Snopes, the whole burial of St. Joseph has several different versions, depending on which realtor you ask:
- Upside down, near the 'For Sale' sign in the front yard.
- Right side up.
- In the rear yard, possibly in a flower bed.
- Lying on its back and pointing towards the house "like an arrow."
- Three feet from the rear of the house.
- Facing the house.
- Facing away from the house.
- Exactly 12 inches deep.
Lots of options there, thank goodness.
So what happens if I choose to bury a proxy instead of the saint himself? That's the question that I've been asking myself. It just seems silly to always bury the same guy, because each house is different and each family has its own needs. Besides, I'm not Catholic, and I don't have any spare statues lying around. And digging is hard work. Have you seen the size of those statues? That would need to be a decent-sized hole, and I've got shoulder issues.
Meet my options. I asked Frankencow to help me make a choice on which of these little guys would be the right one for me.
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| Possible proxies for St. Joseph. |
I put together a selection of all the different police and army personnel that I have in my little arsenal, plus a few extras. Then I divided them into groups, as I saw fit.
The first group consisted of all the gun-toting cowboy types.
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| The Gun-Slingers. |
Then there were the movers and the shakers. The men who issue the call to action, see what's going on, and so forth.
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| Frankie liked these guys better. I can kind of see her point. |
Last were the defectives. Not defective as in, "They defected from the other side to join ours," but defective as in broken. Missing body parts.
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| Perhaps burying these guys is akin to burying trash. Probably not good mojo for someone trying to sell a house. |
After much deliberation, I felt Frankie had a point: guys with guns don't exactly send the right message to potential home-buyers. That eliminated everyone in the first group. And broken discards didn't seem quite right either. That left only the candidates in the second group.
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| Not bad options, but not quite right for my purposes. |
While all of the men left were decent, two of them were eliminated because they just didn't quite fit my needs. Lookout guy and tough-looking guy were nice enough, but the other three fit better.
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| The cheerleader, the dog keeper, and the greeter. |
With Frankencow's help, I settled on these three as the top choices. The cheerleader can call potential homebuyers, get their attention. The dog keeper, to my way of thinking, fits because we have a couple of mangy mutts in our household. I think our home would be good for another canine-friendly family. And the greeter? He can pull them in. Doesn't he seem warm and friendly to you?
Tomorrow I'll make my final decision, but I think I'll get more input first. Any opinions?
4 comments:
I would bury an Obama T-shirt. This other stuff on here is way too valuable to leave behind.
My vote is for the Cheerleader. Here is the rational: the guy with the dog, while quite related, not everyone likes dogs. The greeter isn't enthused about his job: "Keep moving this way, stay in line" I can just hear him saying... The Cheerleader says "BUY THIS HOUSE!"
I buried a few St. Joseph statues when we were trying to sell our house in KY. Since I found the same conflicting information as to how and where to bury him, I got a few and buried one near the for sale sign (on his side so he was neither right-side up or up-side down) and one in the backyard. I think I also buried one near the front door.
Oh, and there were other tactics that we employed. I burned sage to rid the house of bad mojo. I baked cookies or burned a candle that smelled like homemade cookies when we had a showing. We put half of our stuff in storage to de-clutter the house and repainted every room except for 1 bathroom.
Needless to say, our efforts resulted in the house being on the market for 16 months and we sold it for the exact same amount that we had bought it for 5 years prior. I wish you much more luck than we had!
Hmmm, Gail, I think I like the whole notion of burying more than one. I feel your pain. When I talked to the realtor, my biggest concern was that someone would be able to get financing to purchase our home. I *think* that lending has improved somewhat, but he never really gave me a straight answer. I'll just do the best I can keeping the house clean and inviting. And I hope we can sell our house for more than we paid for it 10 years ago. Something tells me that even if the house has to be on the market for a few months that we'll come out better in that respect.
Paul, I agree about the enthusiastic "greeter," but hadn't thought it in quite those terms. My thoughts ran more to the "keep it movin', keep it movin'" mentality that traffic cops must possess. I thought that he might at least draw them in, even if he didn't necessarily inspire them to purchase. And statistics say that the more people that see your house, the better your odds are for selling quickly. We'll see . . .
Martin, I guess I should admit that I don't own an Obama t-shirt. In fact, I don't own many t-shirts with logos on them because I just think it's wrong that I should have to pay to advertise someone's business (or cause) for them. Maybe I just need my own cause -- selling my house. I could get a cool shirt printed up with some fancy schmancy logo on it and bury that, I suppose. I'm going to give this some (semi)serious thought.
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