Desperate Sellers Take Leaps of Faith

Negative events such as bankruptcies, divorces and health problems leave negative energy in the walls of a home, Chomos said. So she does space-clearing techniques that get the home back to neutral and ready for new occupants.

This idea has its skeptics.

But some home sellers, including Winfield, do believe that their troubles in letting go of the home can conspire to impede a sale. Ayres said there are certain techniques sellers can use to let go, making it easier for a buyer to come in and claim the home.

The home that Winfield was trying to sell was filled with memories, including when her son graduated from high school and when the family dog fell ill. And while she and her husband, who decided to move to Colorado for a job, knew where they'd be living, they hadn't bought a home there.

"I don't think I realized I was holding on to it," she said.

As a symbolic gesture that helped her let go, Winfield took a few crumbles of foundation from the old home and tossed it into the Colorado River, near where they were moving.

For Stephen Binz, another home seller who struggled to get an offer, the ritual of burying a statue of a saint was like a prayer. Binz is the author of "St. Joseph, My Real Estate Agent: Why the Patron Saint of Home Life is the Patron Saint of Home-Selling." He spends the first chapter of the book explaining how the process helped him and focuses the book on how the saint can be an inspiration to those in the transitional process of moving.

"If a person believes that by saying certain words or performing a certain action something is going to occur, that's superstition," he said. "But appealing to a saint is an act of devotion."

Seven days after he buried the statue as directed -- upside down in the yard -- he had an offer.

After the home is sold, the statue is supposed to reside in a place of honor in the seller's new home. At the Winfields' new home, Saint Joseph sits in the kitchen window.

While to some this process may seem a far-fetched idea, there might not be as many doubting Thomases out there as one might think.

According to Phil Cates, owner of the online retailer StJosephStatue.com, sales of figurine kits have doubled every year since 2004. For $9.95, the statue comes with a burial bag and an instructional booklet, all packaged in a cotton tote bag with a logo of Saint Joseph on it, Cates said.

Orders to the company, based in Modesto, Calif., come from across the country, although people from states with troubled markets -- including Florida, Michigan and Ohio -- seem to be ordering the most nowadays, he said. Believers and skeptics are invited to submit their stories on the Web site.

But when customers call Cates, who is also a mortgage professional, he often gives them a dose of market reality with their prayerful purchase.

"They need attractive pricing, and you have to start thinking like a home builder and give incentives," he said. "It's important that people know, that they don't have rose-colored glasses on. They need to know what they're faced with."