Recession House Sales

Week of June 3
We were moving and had to sell our house but little or nothing was selling. We prayed and decided to try and sell our little three-bedroom two-bath home ourselves.


Joy (my wife) had read articles on for sale by owner and together we did everything to make our house presentable. I did some little fix me up projects which I meant to do a long time ago and she made sure the house was clean and tidy. I purchased some house for sale signs and placed an notice in the daily newspaper for an open house Saturday and Sunday.

On Friday evening after sunset I placed a for sale sign on the front lawn. I literally was pounding the stake in the ground when a car slowed in front of the house. The driver, a young woman, asked if I was the owner. I said I am.

She said, “I have been looking for a house in this neighborhood for weeks?”

“Well,” I said, “ You just found one. We are having an open house tomorrow. Come and see our home in the daylight.” She said she would.

The next day three people came to the open house, one middle age couple and the young woman I had talked with the night before. She was single and a lawyer. Joy walked her around the house which smelled of freshly baked cookies (one of the magazine selling tips). She was definitely interested but wanted to return the next day with her parents.

On Sunday she returned with her parents and we all went through the house together. I talked with her dad about the heating system, utility bills and the roof while Joy chatted with her mother about curtains, closet space and kitchen cabinets. It was a good visit and they left saying they would have to talk about it.

On Monday the phone rang non stop. But all the calls were from real estate agents wanting a listing and telling us the pitfalls of trying to sell the house ourselves.

On Tuesday the newspaper called asking if we wanted to renew our ad for the open house, the deadline for the weekend was Wednesday. There was no call from the young attorney.

On Wednesday, I renewed our advertisement for an open house on the weekend. On Thursday we received no calls regarding the house.

On Friday we received a call from the young woman who asked if she could come over. We met with her that evening and she made a verbal offer. We talked a little more and I made a counter offer and she accepted it and we made out and signed the appropriate Real Estate forms( which by the way are available from your local pharmacy.)

The following Monday more calls came from the real estate agents offering their services. When we told them the house was under contract they were shocked. We had sold our house in one week for 97% of the asking price.

What they didn’t know was that we had prayed throughout the whole process and made God our real estate agent.

Fast forward 20 years. It is now the height of the current recession. It was time to sell our cottage on a lake in Massachusetts. This time we hired a human real estate agent but still made God our spiritual real estate agent and we covered the entire process in prayer. It was the middle of the summer and prices were depressed and that weren't many buyers out there.

Our agent set the price higher than I thought it would sell. "We can always come down," she said. We had an open house and within one week we had three offers. One of which became our buyer at 97% of our asking  price. PTL.


 Mal Salter
West Hartford Ct.
Sturbridge Ma.