Will burying a statue of St Joseph in your yard really help you sell your home?

There is a long standing legend in the real estate world that says if you really want to sell your home you should bury a statue of St Joseph upside down in your yard and pray to St. Joseph and your house will sell quickly. Does burying a statue of St. Joseph in your yard really make your house sell more quickly? Well, thousands of realtors believe it does and bury statues of St. Joseph in the yards of the houses that they are trying to sell. At one point so many realtors believed this legend to be true that it was hard to find statues of St. Joseph because realtors were buying the statues by the case so that they could sell homes faster. It’s not just realtors that swear by the legend. Plenty of ordinary homeowners insist that their houses sold much faster after they buried a statue of St. Joseph in their yards.

So where does this tradition come from? There are several different sources for this legend. One of the most well known stories of the beginning of this tradition is that German builders would place blessed medals and statues of St. Joseph in the walls and in the foundations of the home that they would build and as then they would pray that St. Joseph would bless the home and the people that lived there and keep them safe. In many old houses in Germany homeowners have found old medals and statues of St. Joseph when they renovate or add onto their homes. Over the years it became a tradition to bury a statue of St. Joseph in the yard of the house that you want to sell so that St. Joseph will guide a new owner to the home that will take care of the home and be happy in the home.


Another version of the story says that St. Teresa of Avila, a famous Catholic nun and mystic, was desperately trying to find land so that she could build a convent where an order of nuns could live. She couldn’t find the right piece of land for the convent so she told her nuns to bury blessed medals of St. Joseph, who is the patron saint of the home, and to pray that St. Joseph would help her find the right piece of land. Their prayers and the medals worked and very quickly St. Teresa found the land that she needed for her convent. Over time the tradition changed and it become more common for sellers to bury statues of St. Joseph to try and sell a home which is the tradition that exists today.


Once you have sold the home, according to the tradition, you should dig up the statue of St. Joseph and take it with you to your new home.  Place the statue in a place of honor in your new home to give thanks to St. Joseph for his help in selling your home.  Some people say that you should leave the statue of St. Joseph buried in the ground to protect the property and the new owners of the home but other people say that if you leave the statue there then the home will keep being sold over and over so it’s better if you take the statue with you. Make sure to place a marker of some kind at the site where you bury the statue so that you will know where you need to dig in order to dig the statue back up.


Even though there’s no scientific evidence that burying a statue of St. Joseph will help you sell your home faster there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that if you want to make a quick sale on your home burying a statue of St. Joseph and praying to him for help selling your home will result in a quick sale of the house. If your house has been sitting on the market for a long time and you can’t seem to find a buyer bury a small plastic statue of St. Joseph in your yard and pray to St. Joseph for help and see for yourself what happens. Chances are good your house will sell quickly.

Sam Pondel