Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
July 10, 2002
Buying, selling home requires groundwork, faith
Plethora of help exists for home buyers and sellers
By Carol Zimmermann
Purchasing a new home is not a venture for the faint of heart. It is a leap of faith — leaving behind an old home in order to start anew somewhere else, whether it is just around the corner or across the country.
Some take this plunge easily. Others are more like the Old Testament Hebrews who wandered in the desert for 40 years before settling into a new home.
But whatever the pace, today's homebuyer can be assured that help is not just on the way, but there at every turn.
A potential home buyer need only offhandedly mention to friends, neighbors or co-workers an interest in testing out the real estate waters, and the deluge of advice will be hard to quell.
Other traditional means abound in books, like "House Selling for Dummies" (published by Hungry Minds in New York), which is loaded with practical information.
Today's home buyers and sellers also have the advantage they would not have had 20 years ago: the Internet, where not only are buying and selling tips aplenty, but practical information that was once only privy to real estate agencies is available, including home prices, listings, photos and virtual tours of houses, neighborhood statistics and market trends.
Popular wisdom, books and real estate Web sites all hold out the possibility that buying and selling a house today not only can be done, but also need not be one of life's most stressful events.
The key, they say, is a little groundwork. For example, house hunters should consider the following before even going out to look at what is available in their market:
•Location. The old adage, "location, location, location," still holds true as buyers should consider potential properties' distances to work, local schools, shopping centers, public transportation or senior services.
•Crucial elements. Buyers should figure out, long before they're on the road with a Realtor, just what it is they are looking for in a home. If they decide they would really like the house to have a two-car garage and a fireplace, for example, then there is no sense wasting time looking at other homes and potentially falling in love with a home that won't suit the family's needs.
•Price range. It's a waste of time for both the home hunters and the Realtor if buyers aren't positive how much money they have available. Before hitting the road, they should get pre-approved for a mortgage that takes in household income, interest rates, types of loans and cash for down payment and closing. Pre-approval also has the advantage of making a potential offer more attractive to a would-be seller.
•Think practically. When looking at several homes in a day, many of the features can blur into one. To keep each house straight, some buyers recommend keeping a checklist and making notes about each home visited. They also recommend dressing for the occasion with comfortable clothing and sturdy shoes.
•Looking for a new home also includes, for all but first-home buyers, parting with the old home. Popular real estate advice is that unless the new buyers can afford two mortgages, they should be prepared to sell the old home before putting a down payment on the new, ideally around the same time.
In recent years, some sellers, hoping for a quick home sale, have looked back to a Catholic tradition — the St. Joseph statue.
Online and in religious stores, people can buy plastic St. Joseph statues along with a prayer card for a successful home sale. The tradition stems from when women religious in the Middle Ages in Europe apparently interceded to St. Joseph, patron of workers and carpenters, and buried his medal in the ground, while praying for new land for their expanding convents.
The tradition was revived in this country a few decades ago when the real estate market crashed. But specifics of the custom are not completely clear, as there are, for example, differing opinions on if the statue should be buried in the front or back yard, upside down or right side up.
But the statue's placement isn't as key as the prayer that accompanies it, according to a Web site that sells the statues — www.stj osephstatue.com. The Web site includes its own "caveat emptor," emphasizing that "there are no guarantees with an act of faith."
It quotes the late Archbishop Daniel E. Sheehan of Omaha, Neb., as saying that, although encouraging devotion to the saints and not discouraging appeals for divine intervention, the Church would frown on people taking on this practice as a superstition and not an act of faith.
The Web site also emphasizes the Church tradition that grace and personal responsibility go hand in hand, saying that for the practice of praying to St. Joseph to be fully effective, "the seller must, of course, first do such practical yet all-important chores as completing all necessary fix-up, properly staging the home and finally, adjusting the price so as to exactly reflect market value."
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