RISMEDIA, Jan. 19, 2007-Dealing with the ups and downs of the housing market is an ongoing challenge for real estate professionals or anyone trying to sell a home. What works one year may not be the best approach the next. A seller’s market can swiftly shift to a buyer’s market and vice versa. Authors Christine Ayres and Cindy Coverdale offer an exciting new tool for selling homes with their book, “Sell Your Home with Feng Shui” (now available through AuthorHouse).
Realtors across the country have come to appreciate the unique opportunity offered by preparing homes for the market using Feng Shui. From creating energetic curb appeal to dealing with difficult stairs, “Sell Your Home with Feng Shui” provides real estate professionals and homeowners everything needed to present a home in the best possible light. It contains full-color photos of staging techniques, success stories and a quick reference guide to use as a checklist. “Sell Your Home with Feng Shui” includes a five page, room-by-room guide and tips for creating your own Feng Shui Staging Kit.
Simple and straightforward, “Sell Your Home with Feng Shui” allows the seller to utilize the principles of Feng Shui without years of study or having to hire a professional. According to the authors, “Using these techniques does not require a large financial outlay or a lot of time and effort. Often, simply shifting the placement of what is already present in the home can do the trick.” The following are a few tips from the book.
Generate Sales with Great Front Doors
Front doors should contrast with the surrounding façade of the house so that they “pop” and create a strong entry to pull in the buyer. When the door is the same color as the house or trim, chi just bounces right off. The door needs to be a dramatic entrance to the property.
Activate Career
The front and center of the home is the Career area. This is the place to make enhancements to activate your career energy. We recommend that you set a small metal bowl or dish holding your business cards here. In most homes, this turns out to be near the front door. The bowl can be placed on a small entry table.
Set Up Welcoming Furniture
Walking into the back of a couch will simply bounce the chi, and the buyer, right back out of the house. Walking into a welcoming furniture arrangement will give the buyer the feeling that they are at home. Place a large chair, couch, or loveseat directly opposite and facing the entry path into the room of first impression. It gives and open-arms welcome to the buyer, and says “Come on in, there’s a place for you here!”
What to Do When There’s No Traffic / No Offers
If no one is coming to see the home, the energy of buyers is stagnant, and you have to get things moving in the Buyer area of the house and property. Hang a wind chime both inside the house in the near right corner, and outside under the eaves of the house in the near right corner. If the “For Sale” sign is not already placed there, move it to the near right corner of the lot by the street. Add streamers or balloons for extra movement. Call those buyers in!
The Bedroom is a Bedroom
You want the Master Bedroom to give a warm welcome to the buyer. Make sure it shows as a bedroom, not a bedroom/office or bedroom/workout space; do not confuse or clutter the energy in the master bedroom with extraneous purposes. You are telling the buyer that the house is too small or inadequate when you represent this room as anything but the master bedroom.
Ayres is a professional Feng Shui consultant who has been involved with the art since 1989. She lived, worked and studied in Hong Kong for four years. Her company, Feng Shui Services, is based in the Lake Tahoe area of California and Nevada. Her work has been recognized by the national Feng Shui Journal and she has published regular monthly columns on Feng Shui over the past 10 years. Ayres has successfully staged thousands of properties for sale, working with Realtors, homeowners and real estate professionals. “Sell Your Home with Feng Shui” is her first book.
Coverdale, a certified Feng Shui consultant, began her studies in transcendental energy in 1999. She continues to expand her knowledge of Feng Shui as a member of the Katherine Metz Affiliate Program, studying the Black Sect teachings of Professor Lin Yun Rinpoche. She lives in the Lake Tahoe area with her husband, musician David Coverdale, and their son. Coverdale previously co-authored Food That Rocks.
“Sell Your Home with Feng Shui” is available for purchase at major book retail Web sites such as www.amazon.com.
