Written By: Matthew Ferrara

What’s more embarrassing: that some real estate agents will do anything to sell a home, including superstitious rituals, or that classes on such nonsense are actually approved for continuing education? Somebody stick a voodoo pin in me!

Are times so tough in real estate that we’re reduced to calling in the witch doctors? Indeed, the ritual use of religious statues, astrological furniture arrangement and power-color sales tactics have long been a pet peeve of mine. I’ve blogged about it many times over the years. Admittedly, I live in the state that burned quite a few women accused of witchcraft: But that was in the 17th century.

Today we’re hiring witches as real estate consultants.

Is it all good fun? Apparently not, considering news organizations as prestigious as the Wall Street Journal are covering the story and the seriousness with which the real estate agents in the article profess the efficacy of their arcane arts:

“Residue, residue, residue is in this house. It has to come out,” shouted Ms. Bruno, a 70-year-old who claims to be a descendant of 16th-century Italian witches. “Lord of fire, lord flame, blessed be thy holy name…All negativity must be gone!”
…
Taking her cleansing agent of kosher salt in a bowl of water and lighting a candle, she led the group—including the buyer’s agent—up the stairs. Arriving at the upstairs kitchen, gutted of its cabinetry and appliances, Ms. Bruno yelled into the air: “You will not hurt anything I hold dear. I am the exorcist of your garbage!”
…
In Sacramento, Calif., realtor Tamara Dorris also used feng shui to help speed the sale of a property that had been on the market for more than a year. She placed a jade plant, believed to bring good financial luck, in a “prosperity corner” and waited.

“Within two weeks, I had two offers,” she says. “Most homes have at least one or two prosperity flaws. Foreclosed homes have five or six flaws.”

Makes me wonder if I’ve wasted two decades of my life doing my little part to raise the professionalism of the industry. I feel sad (I’m sure there’s a spell to cure it) for all of the hard-working agents who think properly staging, pricing and promoting a property is the appropriate way to sell a home. How foolish of us not to burn incense at open houses and sacrifice goats on the porch!

If this stuff is so effective, why don’t we add some new fields to our MLS systems? How about “Last Exorcised Date” or “Astrological Alignment Factor” fields? Let’s update REALTOR.COM to offer a search by negative residue or prosperity level. Our maps could plot the known paths of evil spirits touring the neighborhoods (no GPS needed).

Now all we need is an iPad app that detects Hell holes. Or do we just call those foreclosures?

While there’s always a desperate customer willing to try anything before making the tough decisions, it’s more disheartening to think that ritual rain-dances and spiritual cleansings qualify for continuing education for licensed real estate professionals. We’re talking about people entrusted to guide consumers through the largest financial transaction of their lives. Government regulators charged with protecting the consumer have approved such topics for training in dozens of states. Really.

Even the “Voice of Real Estate” has a field guide of incantations for its members on its website. So the REALTORS in Nevada, Florida and California can thank their lucky stars: their trade group’s power-PDF’s should clear up those distressed markets soon!

Brokers should get into the game as well. Why recruit a newly licensed acolyte when there are plenty of 15th Level Wizards wielding Wands of Mortgage Minimization, burning Dispel Dark Magic scrolls at open houses and wearing a Peaceful Periapt of Pax to ward off sellers behind on their mortgages? It would certainly make office meetings more interesting for the manager to read a few pages from the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

For the last five years, too many people have struggled too hard against challenging market conditions in real estate to see articles like this make the front page of a major newspaper. Trainers, brokers and industry leaders around the world have tried to prepare their companies – and more importantly, consumers – to navigate the real forces at work in the housing market. To manage pricing, monitor inflation, and maintain productivity during real estate’s darkest hours in decades. It’s frustrating – maddening, really – when media lends credence to quackery to sell copies of their paper. But it’s deeply more disturbing to look beyond the headlines and find practitioners whose tools of the trade are more likely incantations than iPads.

Send in the flying monkeys!