Miamism Interview – WSVN Channel 7 – Saint For Sale

Talk about a great Thowback Thursday post! #TBT

Back in August 2006, I wrote a short blog post referencing a Realtor Magazine Article that talked about imploring higher powers to sell real estate. To think there was a time we had to beckon to a higher power to help us sell homes and now we’re dealing with bidding wars!!

Most people that know me will tell you that I am spiritual and I found it interesting that sellers were looking for non-conventional and mystical help to sell their properties. Here’s that article:

Spiritual approach to sell your home? We are bombarded by the Media everyday telling us that it is a slow housing market. Some sellers are trying new ways to attract buyers into their homes and eventhough some of these methods may seem unconventional, it’s interesting to know different options are out there. We have talked about conventional methods like “staging”, “updating” and even “seller incentives”, but what about imploring a HIGHER POWER??Some of these practices involve from burying a St. Joseph statue in the yard of a home, to Feng Shui, to the Indian practice of Vaastu. Dinah Eng, in her Realtor Magazine article, speaks to different real estate professionals who have experienced these approaches.Can Higher Powers Sell a Home?Let us know if you have had first hand experience using any of these methods, and what the result was and good luck with the sale of your home.

Little did I know what that blog post would turn into. I was contacted by a Channel 7 producer last week telling me that she had found my “St. Joseph blog post” and would like to interview me and possibly one of our customers because she was doing a story on St. Joseph and Miami real estate.  (Did you know that St. Joseph Statue sales has increased over 200%?)

Of course I jumped at the opportunity, this would mean great exposure not only for “Rick & Ines” Team Miamism and our real estate business, but would help out one of our customers as well. (Nothing like getting TV exposure for one of our listings). I have to admit I was a bit nervous during the interview and felt my voice cracking at times, but it was a lot of fun and I was happy to meet the producer, Maday Rodriguez, as well as Anthony Pineda, the photographer from Channel 7.

Andrea, our customer, was such a sport about the whole thing and not only visited a “Botanica”, but allowed to be filmed doing the burial ritual and let Channel 7 into her home. I am a bit nervous at the whole editing business and hope that I am not taken out of context when they cut and snip the taping. The story should air on February 8th (I will include a link here in Miamism).

(pictured from left to right:  Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Maday Rodriguez, Anthony Pineda, Andrea Williams)

And just in case I am taken out of context, here’s my rational explanation why the ritual of burying a St. Joseph Statue can only help the sale of your Miami real estate. We all know that Real estate is an emotional process. As much as we would like to think of it as business, there are a lot of feelings and sometimes sheltered emotions that are involved.

In the case of sellers, we encounter that a lot of the time there are emotional blocks where subconsciously a seller does not really want to sell their home; whether it’s because of priceless memories that the home holds or simply because they dread having to pack and move and to find a new place. (I know this may be a bit far fetched for “the skeptics”).

The actual ritual of buying and burying the statue can help break the emotional block, and ultimately make the house more welcoming to prospective buyers. In the case of Andrea, the whole process went a step further. Her house had been listed for nearly 8 months without much luck. She took this opportunity as a chance to change the process, allow new energy into the sale of her home and she not only did the ritual, but also decluttered so her house would show better. 

She did later admit that although she wanted to sell, she didn’t take the sale seriously before, and now was ready. I thank Maday Rodriguez for finding the article and for letting us join in the fun.  Thanks also to Andrea for playing along.  Now let’s get that house SOLD!