When sales slow, many homeowners look for help from St. Joseph.

Q: We’ve been trying to sell our home, but haven’t had any luck because our local market is still a little slow. I have heard that burying a statue of St. Joseph in the front yard can help to find a buyer more quickly. What do you think about this practice? When did it get started? We’re getting so desperate to sell that we’re ready to try anything!

A: I’ve been writing about real estate for four decades. And without fail, I have always received a flurry of letters like yours when the housing market goes into its cyclical downturn every five to seven years. I’ll once again answer the question about St. Joe – and then hope such queries won’t be resurrected for a long time.

St. Joseph is the Catholic Church’s patron saint of homes, families and carpenters. Even church officials aren’t sure how modern-day homeowners started to believe that burying a statue of St. Joe could speed a home sale, although some say the idea stems from a group of European nuns in the Middle Ages who buried medallions of the saint and then prayed that he would provide land to build new convents – a request that was soon fulfilled.

Some sellers and real-estate agents swear the practice works, while others say that it’s a bunch of malarkey. If you try it, most believers say the statue should be buried near your for-sale sign and about a foot deep.

The statue, many say, should face toward the home but be buried upside down (the theory being that St. Joe will work extra hard to find a buyer so he can be unearthed and stand upright again).

Church officials generally agree that it’s not blasphemous to bury a statue of St. Joseph in your yard, provided that you dig it up after the property is sold, give it a good scrubbing and then place it on your hearth or other place of honor in your next home.

Several Catholic bookstores and Internet retailers even sell “St. Joseph home-selling kits” for $5 or $10, replete with a statue, prayer card, accessories and directions.