Agents, sellers "raise the chi" to attract home buyers

A growing number of real estate agents and people selling their own homes are turning to feng shui — the ancient Chinese art of designing structures and arranging objects to create harmonious energy flow — to help attract buyers.

While sellers can’t do much about the size of rooms or other construction features of the home, they can make some cosmetic changes like removing extra furniture and strategically place items like candles and plants around the house to create a more balanced environment for potential buyers.

The feng shui concept promotes prosperity, good health and general well being by examining how energy, chi, flows through a particular room, house, building, or garden.

For home sellers, a home with better chi or energy may sell quicker. Many are hiring feng shui consultants to help them improve their home’s chi.

In addition, many real estate agents are getting training in the ancient Chinese practice themselves. Many of the principles of feng shui overlap with the practical suggestions real estate agents already make to people looking to sell their homes. It encourages a balance of colors, sizes and shapes, and emphasizes simplicity.

While traditional feng shui incorporates the geographic position of the home — which a seller generally has no control over — experts say anyone can "raise the chi" of their home and its value by improving its overall appeal like eliminating clutter and making better use of natural sunlight.

"Feng shui is really not about investing a lot of money because most of the time our clients have the proper things — they're just in different spaces. They're in the wrong places, feng-shui-wise," Shelly Mengo, a feng shui consultant, said in a recent article from the Associated Press.

The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) doesn’t keep track of how many of its members use feng shui practitioners or have undergone training themselves, however, there are more and more feng shui seminars and schools for real estate agents are popping up across the U.S. One such school, Washington state-based Feng Shui School for Real Estate Sales, provides classes for agents looking for basics or looking to become feng shui consultants.

Gail Lyons, a real estate broker in Boulder, Colo., told the Associated Press as many as 30 percent of her clients are interested in buying a home with good feng shui.

"They'll say, 'I want to be sure the hallway doesn't go all the way from the front door to the back door. The good energy, the chi, can just go right through the house.' If I know this is something that's important to them, I start looking specifically for it," said Lyons.

A seller isn’t going to magically get millions for a home priced in the hundred thousands, but experts will agree the main benefit of feng shui in real estate is a simple one.

"When houses have good feng shui, the buyers want to stay," Ziegler told the AP. She is also author of the book Sell Your Home Faster with Feng Shui. "They bond with the house more quickly and they end up being happier in that house. It's just a happy house to stay in, and feng shui is really all about feelings and how you feel in a space."

Effective date delayed for Do-Not-Fax rules

There's a six-month delay in the effective date of new Do-Not-Fax rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) due to the successful lobbying efforts of the National Association of REALTORS®, all 50 state associations of REALTOR® and REALTOR® associations for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The extension, which expires June 30, 2005, was granted to give Congress more time to act on the Junk Fax Prevention Act (H.R. 4600/S. 2603), bipartisan legislation NAR has been pushing that would mitigate the problems created by new do-not-fax rules for both consumers and businesses.

NAR supports efforts to limit unsolicited faxes, including a requirement to obtain permission before sending faxes, but believes that the FCC went too far by requiring signed, written permission for faxes. The association estimates that over 67 million permission forms would have had to have been created and stored to sustain the over 6 million home sales transactions that occurred last year.

NAR and state REALTOR® associations filed a petition asking the FCC to grant an extension to give Congress time to complete consideration of do-not-fax legislation without burdening NAR members with significant compliance costs while it is still unclear what rules will be in effect on Jan. 1, 2005.

NAR also was party to a petition filed by the Fax Ban Coalition, a broad-based group of more than 600 businesses and trade organizations.

"Without this delay, REALTORS® soon would not be able to fax property listings to consumers who call and request such information without first getting written permission," said NAR President Walt McDonald, broker-owner of Walt McDonald Real Estate in Riverside, Calif. "This extension gives Congress time to enact legislation that will eliminate junk faxes without creating costly regulations that burden legitimate businesses and stifle consumers' ability to receive information in a timely manner."