Our house is for sale!
It’s been an intense few weeks of getting our house in perfect condition (who wants to come for dinner, we’ll eat off of the floors) but finally it is on the market!
We had our first showing on Saturday so we shoved the dogs into the car and spent a half hour at the dog park. When we got back 45 minutes later there was a couple parked in front of our house, peeking in our windows. Feeling awkward, we drove around the block, but when we came back they were walking around in our back yard. Half an hour later they were still there (a good sign?), so we went and got some food and beers down the street. Our open house was on Sunday afternoon, and now we’re just waiting for the offers to roll in (that’s how it works, right?).
Our house, but hopefully not for long
Thanks to a tip from a friends mom, we bought a statue of St. Joseph to bury in our yard. St. Joseph is the patron saint of selling houses (or something like that) and he will hopefully bring us good luck and help us sell our house quickly!
Originally we gave St. Joseph a place of honor on our shelf but Brian thought he might not appreciate being overshadowed by Buddha.
Can St. Joseph and Buddha coexist?
So we gave him his own shelf.
We didn’t want to take any chances.
I wanted St. Joseph to get a good sense of the neighborhood so I took him on a few runs, over to the neighbors house and out to our local watering hole. Then I sat him down and explained to him exactly why we need him to help us sell our house.
Explaining to St. Joseph that we want to sell our house so we can travel the world.
Just to make sure he understood we showed him our itinerary on the world map.
Don’t worry, that’s not really our itinerary
Finally, when the time was right, we buried him in the yard. After much research we determined that burying him head down and facing the house would bring us the most luck.
Brian digs a hole for St. Joseph
St. Joseph moves into his temporary home
Bring us luck St. Joseph! (P.S. check out my new haircut!)
Me, my new haircut, and St. Joseph
Thanks to everyone that’s pulling for us and sending us good vibes from all over the world. We can feel them!
If you live in Oregon and are interested in an adorable house in North Portland that’s walkable to shops, restaurants, pubs, movie theaters, the post office, library, grocery stores and pretty much everything else please email me and I will send you the listing!
We're Kim and Brian and we have one goal: Sell our stuff, quit our jobs, and crawl (claw?) our way out of our cubicles to travel the world. 
Good Luck! We are selling our home right now and it hasn’t been fun so far. I hope your experience is better than ours! Looking forward to reading about your adventures.
Thank you! So far so good but we are just at the very beginning. Good luck to you guys!!
Good luck!! Instead of wrestling with the housing market right now we decided to rent ours out instead of sell it for our big trip. I wish we’d known about St. Joseph – it would be nice to not worry about the renters while we’re on the road.
Hi Allison. We really went back and forth on the renting/owning situation. It was agonizing! In the end we just made the decision that selling was right for us. It was a hard decision. Hopefully you won’t have to worry about the renters too much!
DEBBY is glad to see St. Joseph is pulling through for you all. We read this together and loved it! Congrats!
Yay! Tell Debbie I said THANK YOU. I think she’s playing a big role in this
Aww, your new haircut looks adorable Kim. Good luck selling the house!
p.s. I think the fake itinerary looks pretty incredible. You should totally follow it.
That was the itinerary we originally laid out when we started planning. Now we know we probably won’t follow any kind of planned itinerary. But yeah, it’s pretty badass! Maybe it will work out like that.
OMG…you have J and I laughing out loud!!! I love that he had his own shelf…but I think he’s totally going to kick ass buried in the yard!
I think he’s going to kick ass too. We’ve had some good luck so far. St. Joseph has made me a believer!
I think y’all should have no problems selling your house for a couple reasons:
1. Your house is adorable.
2. St. Joseph should be extra-willing to help y’all since you were so nice to him and even sat down to have a heart-to-heart with him. How could he refuse your request?
Also, your haircut is so cute!
Best of luck to y’all! I hope you can nab a buyer really quick so you won’t have to worry about owning a house much longer! Sending good vibes and thoughts out your way!
Hi Krisin. Thanks, we think the house is pretty cute too. I am hoping that my extra effort convincing St. Joseph of the validity of our cause will pay off!!
I’s heard of the St. Joe benefits when we sold our house back in 2008, but it never dawned on me to TALK to the ol’ boy! (Let alone take him on a virtual round-the-world-tour for added measure.)
Even with my ineptitude, we sold our house in 3 months, so I think you’ll do just fine. I used to live in Portland (for a time, before we went location-independent) and the area where you’re trying to sell is fabulous. You’ll do fine (especially if people are already peeking in your windows!).
Thanks for the encouragement. I really, really hope that you are right. We are having some encouraging signs right now so I think St. Joe is pulling for us!
Ha ha ha ha just read this – disregard my other question about showings. LOL. This is great – must get a statue of St. Joseph for us. I love love love your new haircut. I will be happy for you but so so jealous if you sell before us!!!
Amy, now that you’ve got a St. Joseph of your own I know we are just weeks away from the bubbly/skype date!
Hi Kim,
Congratulations for taking this crazy leap! I’m sure St. Joseph will look after you guys. Maybe good karma be with you
Love your new ‘do by the way!
- Lily
P.S. Of course St. Joseph and Buddha can sit together!
Great post! Wishing you all the luck in selling your place quickly and smoothly. I’m glad to have the tip of St. Joseph! Cute place though, and snoopers by is a good sign indeed!
On a couple of asides, I’m glad it isn’t your itinerary. I’m certain it would make for a great trip, but there are many of my favorite places on earth that weren’t on that agenda. Perhaps I’ll write a post about places in the world not to miss!
Love the haircut as well. Might as well go short now, as travel hair tends to go the other direction.
Great to meet you as well.
Cheers,
Miel
Thanks Lily!
Miel, I would LOVE to hear about your favorite places in the world!! Wish we would have had more of a chance to talk the other day. It was great to meet you.
I love how much time you spent with St. Joseph explaining your intentions and showing him around the neighborhood.
Buddha and the Virgin Mary co-exist on my mantle. I find myself wondering what they talk about when the rest of the house is asleep.
Why did you bury him head down? What if he passes out?
Sarah, I bet their conversations are fabulous!
I can’t remember exactly why we buried St. Joseph head down but I KNOW that there is a reason. I think part of the reasoning is so that he works harder to get back out. All I know is that when we pull him out at the end of this he will have a place of honor on our shelf for the rest of time!
wishing you ooooodles of offers over asking price kim & brian! my mom almost went into foreclosure on our house when she and my step-dad divorced when i was in high school. then she heard about burying st. joseph, did just as you did, and BAM! house sold! can you hear the offers coming?? ch-ching!
Oh boy, do I have a story for you guys…. I can’t wait to tell it!!! I am a St. Joseph believer!!