With the property market stabilizing after a protracted period of high interest rates, we’re noticing house prices starting to creep up again. Thanks to this increase in confidence, more homes are finding they way into a competitive market, so what can you do to achieve the maximum return on your investment, and avoid tricky potential buyers who can make the process so stressful?
Once a property listing goes live, your lifestyle and possessions are visible in online searches, and hundreds, even thousands of people will consider requesting a viewing. The next few months of your life are in the hands of others. Your realtor, estate agent, lawyers, and of course your prospective buyers.
I am an interiors therapist and Feng Shui consultant and have some brilliant tips to help you enhance the positive energy within your home, and make sure those motivated buyers are scrambling to buy your home.
How to use Feng Shui principles to bolster your house sale
Feng Shui is all about creating an auspicious and favorable environment within the home. You’ve probably visited locations which give you goosebumps in a bad way, while others are so welcoming and relaxing, you’d love to move right in. With a little awareness, it’s easy to sense a home with a bad vibe, but people living 24/7 with prickly, negative energy often become so used to it, they don’t realize it’s a deterrent to buyers. This is especially relevant in situations of relationship breakdown, high stress levels or long illness.
With Feng Shui we’re able to balance and harmonize the energy in a home so it has visitors at their ease. You want potential purchasers to feel ‘at home’ and visualizing how good it will be to live there. This is an essential part of the decision-making process when it comes to buying a new home, and it won’t matter how perfect a property is on paper, because unless it’s going to be vastly remodeled, if it doesn’t ‘feel right’ then the answer will be ‘no’.
How Feng Shui can bolster your sale price
As an expert in Feng Shui and Interiors Therapy, I see both sides of the property market. Some clients want to prepare their home so it achieves the optimal price to the ‘right’ buyer, while others deliberately seek out a property which has excellent Feng Shui or can be upgraded to suit their requirements. Homes with optimal Feng Shui sell for significantly over the asking price in some parts of the world, with a property in East Killara, Australia leaving the press breathless after a bidding war resulted in an extraordinary sale $800,000 above asking-price.
Whichever way you look at it, bringing a property to market, which looks and feels great and is priced to attract the perfect buyer, is going to make a positive difference to the experience.
When to start applying Feng Shui principles in your home sale
There are two distinct camps on the best time to start the process. My personal preference as a Feng Shui consultant and interiors therapist is to prepare a home before inviting a realtor or estate agent to value it.
Once you’ve selected the person you want to sell your property, it can feel as though you’re clinging to an express train at top speed. The commission structure is an incentive to start the marketing process, get photos and video taken, promote your property online and have viewers through the door as quickly as possible.
Sometimes the pressure to conform to their timescale overtakes the practicalities of preparing an older property to be seen at its best for example, not to mention managing the emotional impact on the people who already live in it. This can mean that silly things are missed which ultimately slow or scupper the sale process.
Estate agents and realtors may tiptoe around the hard facts instead of telling you because let’s be honest: they want your business and have learned to be diplomatic in a highly competitive world. They know every trick to stroke your ego to have you sign up with them, but only the best will give you straightforward, no nonsense advice or be blunt about improving the presentation of a home.
In contrast, when a client asks me for help before they begin the marketing process or selling their home fast, I assess the home; recommend some simple actions and guide them to notice the things prospective purchasers are likely to spot in time to resolve them. I also discuss their reasons for selling, and confirm everyone is on-board with the process, because believe me, your home will betray a divorce situation or anything untoward going on.
If someone isn’t emotionally invested in the process of moving-on it shows. This and a myriad of other issues can, and will, be used against you by a cut-throat buyer, so it pays to be secure in your plan, confident in your home and ready to energetically attract a sale to someone who loves your property and respects you throughout the sale process.
It’s also important to be clear in your mind whether you are bringing a property to market which ‘needs work’ or is in prime condition. A healthy dose of realism about the condition of your home will make a difference from the start.
Forewarned is forearmed, so when my clients invite their agent to market the home, they do so with their eyes open and the property photo-ready. One client had the agent visit at 2 pm, he took photos, did the write up and the two-bed house was on the market by 5 pm the same day. An open house three days later saw offers 20% above asking and it sold immediately. The legal process ran so smoothly, it completed in just under six weeks.
This was a great example of pricing wisely, rather than falling into an ego trap. It’s better to find yourself with a bidding-war and the opportunity to cherry pick the perfect buyer. Well-prepared properties with positive energy tend to sell quickly above asking price to buyers who are invested in a stress-free sale.
Feng Shui basics for selling your home
What are the basics in Feng Shui and interiors therapy terms? This isn’t about home staging, because although some homes, especially in the US, are staged, this isn’t standard practice elsewhere. Instead, we are focused on getting the energy right in a home, so it will keep working for you right through the sale process. Here's where to start:
- Deal with the clutter: No one imagines a dream home crammed with other people’s stuff, and your purchaser needs to see your home at its best. Assess everything which will not be moving with you into your new home. Don’t waste time and money storing it – donate, sell or gift it straight away. You’ll be astonished just how many of your possessions you don’t use, need or love. Moving house is the best incentive you can get to deal with the surplus in your life, and by doing so, create so much space that your home feels brighter, larger, airy and infinitely more tempting for a buyer.
- Dust and cobwebs are a red flag for potential buyers: Ironically, this is one thing which often gets forgotten. It goes without saying that to attract a buyer that will fall in love with your home, the bare minimum is for it to be spotlessly clean.
- Visible neglect can often be a sign of hidden issues: People will judge your home from the first online image through to the way it looks and feels on a viewing so deal with any issues you need to before inviting a realtor around. More serious neglect will likely show up on surveys and potentially hamper the process down the line so learn what you should and shouldn't fix before selling.
Activating good vibes
Using Feng Shui can activate good vibes for the home. Generic articles about Feng Shui may recommend certain colors, or elements like wood, metal, water, and earth to boost the energy in different parts of the home. I’m going to suggest being a little more circumspect, because every home is unique. Please don’t assume that it’s a good idea to put red throw pillows in your south, just because an Instagram influencer says so. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get carried away and I spend quite a bit of time helping clients ‘unlearn’ misinformation gained from unreliable sources.
Here are my suggestions to improve the vibe in any home:
Start on the street and walk into your property as though you’ve never been there before. Look out for places where you have to divert around furniture, or where there are sharp objects protruding, doors which won’t open properly, or a room feels stagnant. These are all areas which are not ‘in flow’ and need some extra TLC to get the positive energy circulating more dynamically.
Use a smart phone compass to compare the home with the traditional Feng Shui Bagua (energy grid of the home). You are likely to find unloved areas of your home reflect the challenges in your life, so if your health is suffering, take a good hard look at the center of your home. If something very major is going on, do consider having a professional Feng Shui assessment done to support you.
However, if you want to take a ‘Feng Shui Lite’ approach, consider using symbolism and intention to give the vibes in your home a boost, and treat yourself to the physical and emotional benefits which come with it.
- Center (Health): Choose images which feel vibrant and express well-being. If you have space, add an abundant bowl of fresh fruit.
- North (Career): Place items here which make you feel successful in whatever life path you have chosen.
- South (Reputation): The location for awards and anything which enhances your visibility. If you have photos of yourself with someone you admire, this is the place to display them.
- East (Family): An excess of family photos are effectively marking your territory. Instead, as part of your preparation, choose a few special pictures and put them in the East. Box the rest to move safely to your new home.
- West (New Beginnings): Choose vibrant white flowers for this area, and if you already have a picture of your new home in mind, this is the perfect place to keep it. You can use an affirmation to yourself to amplify the energy around your sale. Word it something like this: “I am grateful my home has sold quickly and easily at a price in excess of $XX,XXX.”
- Southwest (Relationships): I can’t stress how important it is to use ‘pair energy’ here and in the master bedroom. Matching lamps and other decor items emphasize a balanced relationship. Even if you are separating, don’t allow your home to betray a change in relationship status because it can cost you dearly. Buyers are wary of purchasing a ‘divorce’ home because they don’t want their own relationship to fail. Fortunately ‘bad for people’ energy is fixable with Feng Shui, but don’t give someone leverage to get the divorce done.
- Southeast (Wealth): Choose art and items for this area which represent financial stability and blessings in your life. Avoid anything bleak, or which expresses poverty because this will deter buyers at a subconscious level. I have a client who had award-winning pictures of street children in his office. Despite the house being beautiful, no one offered until he took them down and replaced them with something more aspirational.
- Northeast (Knowledge): This is the spot for books or a meditation area. Curate everything, and only display items which portray the lifestyle your buyers expect from buying your home.
- Northwest (Travel/Helpful Friends): If you love to travel, this is definitely the location for a globe and images of the places you want to visit. However, there’s something more exciting you can activate here to smooth the passage of your sale, and that’s to encourage the ‘Helpful Friends’ energy by using affirmations to trigger Feng Shui and the Law of Attraction to work for you. These might include:Everyone we need to achieve a smooth sale is on hand and ready to support us, My Realtor/Estate Agent attracted the ideal buyer with ease and our house sale completed in perfect timing. You can come up with lots more statements to encourage good vibes around your move, just keep the statements in the present or past tense (as though it’s already happened exactly as you want) and keep the language positive. It’s also a perfect spot to keep a copy of the property brochure and your realtor’s business card.
What to do when facing delays or difficult buyers
If your home has already been on the market for a while, or a buyer is being difficult, it's never too late to improve the energy in a home and enjoy the benefits in all areas of your life, including speeding up the house sale. Take an honest look around your property and ask yourself whether you would choose to buy it and how it measures up to the competition. In an active market it’s definitely time to suspend the marketing, take some external advice, and show your home the love it deserves if it hasn’t sold in six weeks. Then request new promotional photos and a relaunch.
If a buyer is being awkward, they are probably showing their true colors. Set clear boundaries and don’t be afraid to cut them loose if alarm bells are ringing. Better to wait a little longer for a quality buyer than deal with a rogue who may compromise your sale at the last minute.
Finally, it’s important to say there are many more tips and tweaks an experienced Feng Shui practitioner might recommend based specifically on what they observe in the home they are assessing.
Although having a Feng Shui assessment is an investment, Feng Shui can transform the way a home feels for potential buyers, and inevitably for the people who already live there. If there have been financial, relationship or health challenges, it’s worthwhile revitalizing the energy before it goes on the market for more immediate guidance on anything which may be compromising a home, sale, or happiness.
Wherever you are in the moving process, nurture your home and treat it as the asset it is. Feel gratitude for the stability and security you are receiving right now, and for the unveiling of your new life. Next, learn about the house features buyers really want.
