How to Feng Shui Your Home to Sell
You only get one chance to make a first impression…
I was interviewed by U.S. News & World Report about How to Feng Shui your Home to Sell. It inspired me to do my own blog post on the subject:
Why is staging with Feng Shui so important?
When people walk into a home for sale, they decide within 15 seconds whether they want to buy it.
Using Feng Shui as a secret weapon in the competitive world of home staging can bring a faster, more lucrative sale in a cooling real estate market.
First Impressions: The Entrance!
The front door is “how the world sees you” in Feng Shui terms. Obviously, this is not an area you can overlook. People often assume that painting your door red is a “one size fits all” Feng Shui fix. Actually, it’s only appropriate if your door faces South or Southwest, and to a lesser degree, Northeast.
A curvy walkway that leads buyers to your front door is not only good Feng Shui, it’s good curb appeal. Plant some colorful flowers. If your house is overgrown with trees or shrubs, have them trimmed back. Buyers need to be able to see what they are buying.
All about Front Doors and porches:
Make sure your front door isn’t hidden, dirty, or a blah color. This is the time to really shine.
Power wash your home, and paint your door an appropriate color (you can email me for help).
Fix anything that’s broken.
Add address numbers that are bold and viewable at night. Ask a friend to come over at night, and have them tell you how easy (or difficult) it was to find your home.
Add new, large, beautiful lanterns to either side of the door.
Sweep the porch. Add a brand new welcome mat.
Add appropriate plants and flowers (you can email me for help).
Make a “Welcome Vignette” to greet potential home buyers.
Make a “Ming Tang”.
Just past the front door, the entryway is also important. Create a welcome vignette for visitors:
A “Ming Tang,” or “bright palace,” is an important power point in any defined space. The entrance to a dwelling is considered the “mouth of Chi” marking a transition from the outer world into the more private inner world. It provides a statement about the quality of life to be found inside and offers an energetic pathway for opportunity to find its way in.
Let there be light!
Turn on all the lights when showing your home. You can even add new lighting in strategic areas — such as task lighting in the kitchen, or perhaps a floor lamp in a previously dark corner. People want to see what they’re buying.
Clean it up!
Everyone knows that your home needs to be professionally cleaned before it goes on the market, but do you know how important the windows are? In Feng Shui, windows are considered the eyes of the home, and dirty windows can definitely turn a buyer off.
Sage your home.
Performing a sage ceremony resets the energy in your home to neutral — making it appealing to new buyers. We suggest that you hire a pro to perform the ceremony, but if you need to, you can do it yourself. Write down your intention for selling, and repeat it as you go. We will be doing an entire blog post on this in the future.
Strategically place mirrors…but be careful.
Mirrors hold a lot of power in Feng Shui because they reflect energy, which can be a good or bad thing depending on what they capture.
Be aware of what your mirror is reflecting; if it’s reflecting clutter or garbage, it’s going to double it.
When placed correctly, a mirror can help harness the energy of the space and increase it positively.
“I helped stage a home that was featured on an episode of HGTV’s ‘Flip It to Win It’. The master bedroom was in the wealth sector of the Bagua (Southeast). I actually loaned a highly auspicious octagonal mirror of mine to the sellers, and asked them to place it in the wealth area. I also suggested that they use reds, blues, and purples in the master bedroom, which are the colors of that section on the Bagua map. I asked them to place the octagonal mirror behind all this fabulous “wealth decor”, to symbolically “double” their wealth. The home sold for 36% over the asking price.”
An agate mural brings pink into the bedroom in a dramatic way!
Use color according to a room’s Bagua placement.
As with the wealth section, there are colors that elevate each part of the Bagua map. Some examples:
The Career Area (North):
If you have an office in the Career section of the home (North) you can stimulate that area by adding blue or black. An even more powerful fix would be adding a fountain, which would circulate water, the element of the North in Feng Shui.
Relationships (Southwest):
A room in the Relationships area (Southwest) can be improved by adding a shade of red, white or pink, or the Earth element. Anything that comes from the Earth would suffice: glass (which comes from sand), rocks, stones, crystals, terra cotta, porcelain, china, or even dirt in a plant. This dramatic agate mural brings pink into the bedroom in a major (and unforgettable) way!
Declutter your home.
One of the cheapest, but most powerful things you can do is declutter your home. Clutter is all about postponed decisions. By holding onto stuff, you are preventing new opportunities from coming in. Buyers will feel overwhelmed just looking at it, and it will make it impossible for them to picture themselves in your home.
Depersonalize the space.
Like decluttering, it’s important to remove personal photos and images of you and your family. These make it hard for a buyer to picture himself or herself in the home, and they also give off an energy that you’re not ready to leave yet.
Go bold, or go home!
Many people will mistakenly tell you to “neutralize” your home, paint it with “safe” colors, etc, etc. If you want your home to be memorable, do the opposite. I’m not talking about zany, mismatched, wild colors, but rather strategically placed color, that’s memorable to buyers. After an open house, buyers will say:
“Remember that home with the orange midcentury couch?” They will not say “Remember that home with the beige walls?”
I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, and I can assure you, color does sell homes. That being said, you might want to hire a pro to help, because if you get it wrong, it can be just as bad.
Pack a few boxes.
Since you’re already packing up some of your more personal pieces of decor, also pack up five of your prized possessions in boxes to show that you are ready and willing to go. It not only helps you prepare to start anew elsewhere but potential buyers can sense that you’re ready to go and the house is ready for new memories.
Incorporate images of nature.
When it comes to displaying art in the home, we recommend images of nature because they often appeal to everyone. Refrain from showing images of solitary figures, which can bring to mind loneliness. Colorful images of trees or flowers are far more likely to foster a positive feeling rather than play into someone’s subconscious fears.
Bring images of nature into your home when staging
Bring in fresh plants and flowers.
Flowers and a houseplants can be excellent additions to any staged room. Plus, by bringing nature indoors, you’re bringing in one of the Five Elements: Wood.
“It’s important to see something alive in the house. Live plants give off chi, which keeps things moving inside.”
Keep scent in mind.
No one wants to walk into a house and smell garbage, mold, or pet smells. [Obviously if you have mold issues, you should remedy them first]. Fresh flowers and plants can certainly help, but you can also light some scented candles to evoke a mood. Scent can trigger memories in a way that is frequently more powerful than visual.
Men’s favorite scents? Fresh cut grass, apple pie, and vanilla. If you can find a way to have all three going at your open house, bravo! [Interesting note: “Tommy Girl” perfume contains all three scents…]
Women’s favorite scents? Warm scents (like vanilla) top the list of Midwestern women’s favorite scents. Women in the South go for clean/soapy scents. Almost everyone loves lavender and roses.
The Master Bedroom.
Remove personal items, such as framed photos and stacks of papers. The buyer wants to picture what it would be like to move right in. Having personal items around makes them feel like an outsider.
“Make sure everyone is included! Two nightstands, two lamps, etc. Symmetry is a good thing in the bedroom. Seeing the outside from the bedroom is a big plus. If you can, install french doors that lead to the garden.”
Adding furniture to your patio gives the feeling of more square footage to buyers
Create outdoor “rooms” to add square footage:
Creating an outdoor room extends your home’s feeling of space. It also gives that indoor/outdoor flow that everyone loves. Don’t skimp when creating a patio vignette. You don’t have to break the bank, but the space should feel luxurious, clean, and fresh.
Don‘t block the flow with furniture.
Allow the chi to flow freely around the room, and don’t block natural pathways with furniture. If you see the back of the couch when you enter a room, it can give a closed-off feeling that can turn off potential buyers. It’s also bad Feng Shui to have your back to the door when you’re seated on the couch.
If you’ve got serious issues, call the pros.
Be aware if your home has bad Feng Shui, so you can do something about it. Here are a few examples:
A property that stands at the end of a T intersection, for example, has too much energy rushing toward it all the time.
A triangular plot represents fire; which can make it difficult for those inside the house to feel positive energy. Although some issues seem unfixable, there are always solutions and ways to mitigate every Feng Shui problem.
If you need help, feel free to email me at jennifer@fengshuistyle.us. For more room-by-room hints, check out our next blog post, coming soon!