Real Estate Market Turns to Feng Shui

The old Victorian home sat on the market for six months before its anxious sellers decided to ask for some help -- from a pair of feng shui consultants.

Mary Jane Kasliner and Shelley Mengo couldn’t do much to change the size of the tiny master bedroom, but they had other advice for the owners. Move the for-sale sign to a different spot, remove extra furniture, and strategically place items like candles and plants around the house to create balance between “yin and yang,” they instructed.

Their goal: a more serene home with better chi, or energy.

“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,” said Mengo, who runs a feng shui consulting business with Kasliner called Harmonious Living.

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.

Real estate agents and consultants who have training in feng shui (pronounced fung-SHWAY), once prevalent in areas with Asian-American populations, are becoming common.

While the National Assn. of Realtors does not track how many agents use feng shui practitioners or have undergone training themselves, there are signs that its appeal is broadening. Seminars on its principles are being taught at trade group meetings nationwide.

“There are a lot more Realtors knowledgeable about feng shui today than there were three years ago,” said Holly Ziegler, a broker in California and feng shui instructor. “I would say in the next three years, there will be a huge number of Realtors who are paying attention to this information because it only helps serve them and their clients.”

Gail Lyons, a broker in Boulder, Colo., said as many as 30% 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, the National Assn. of Realtors’ regional coordinator for Asia.

Literally translated, “feng” means wind and “shui” water, the two most important elements in the traditional Chinese art of placement.

Many of its principles overlap with the practical suggestions that real estate agents already make to people looking to sell their homes. It encourages a balance of colors, sizes and shapes, and emphasizes simplicity.

A practitioner’s tools, though, are somewhat less familiar: They can include a luo pan (a compass), crystals or a “bagua” map used to locate areas of a home that correspond to different aspects of a person’s life, such as wealth or knowledge.

Some falsely associate feng shui with magic, referring to it as “that science where you move the couch and you’re wealthy,” Kasliner said. But experts say the main benefit of feng shui in real estate is simple.

“When houses have good feng shui, the buyers want to stay,” said Ziegler, author of “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.”

Traditional feng shui includes the orientation of a home, something that isn’t easy or cheap to fix when someone is looking to move. Still, anyone can “raise the chi” of their home, and its value, by packing up their clutter and making use of natural sunlight, experts say.

“People can then focus on the house itself,” Ziegler said. “Instead of remembering your spoon collection, they’ll remember what the home really looked like.”

For many, feng shui-ing a home for sale has more to do with improving its overall appeal and less with major renovations.

Homeowners or Realtors seeking the help of a licensed feng shui practitioner can expect to pay a fee. Mengo and Kasliner say a person could have a room in their home “feng shui-ed” starting for around $170.

The resulting subtle changes are all about creating ambience.

“Feng shui itself -- if you look at it in the mainstream -- is just a harmony, just a good feeling,” said San Francisco Bay area-based Fanny Chu of Prudential California Realty. “We always say when you walk in, if you feel good about a home, it’s your intuition. Feng shui is just that.”