As a Feng Shui consultant and professional Feng Shui home stager, my number one suggestion to my clients is very often to get a storage unit so they can only keep what they truly need in their home for it to look and feel inviting to anyone who visits, allowing their house to “read better” to all potential buyers.
Feng Shui creates harmonious vibrations in homes, offices and outdoor spaces using a balance of the 5 elements in nature: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. We also use a tool called the Bagua Map, which can help people understand their space better.
There are other occasions where I will recommend that we do at least a partial Feng Shui staging. Usually this occurs when their belongings are half-packed or already in transit or because they have clearly outdated furniture.
And when you are set to stage your house, please don’t hire a cookie-cutter stager- there is too much at stake. Your best bet is to arrange your belongings with the help of a Feng Shui consultant.
Why? In order to be most cost efficient with their inventory, most stagers (although not all!) will have a very bland inventory of staging elements that can go in midcentury homes as well as new constructions or 100-year old cottages. So what is your best bet to create an inviting home that potential buyers will fall in love with? Clear out your own furnishings down to the minimum and play with placement and wall colors with the guidance of a Feng Shui consultant who knows best how to achieve the results you need.
The reason? So that many buyers can imagine their own life there and so that you get multiple offers and hopefully a bidding war. The goal is to create a staged home where clients can instantly imagine their own life and family happily and joyously living there. Buying a house is a decision from the heart. And the heart doesn’t like clinical interiors (even an investor’s heart!). Hiring a Feng Shui consultant can help you stage your property before you put it on the market. … the investment is well worth it.
Staging is all about possibility. It is about helping buyers visualize what their lives could be in your home. It is about potential. No one ever buys a home to have a bleak future. Whether buyers upgrade, downgrade or are first-time buyers, they need to be able to dream.
Not everyone is capable of visualizing a home with their own furnishings and customized to their taste. Subconsciously, all those red flags go up and potential buyers might pass up their dream home, because they just weren’t able to visualize their life in your home.
Here are just a few ideas I start with to help your staged home come alive:
I encourage you to personalize the space: not too much, of course! But just enough to show that the energy is vibrant in your home! Items and their intended purposes have a way of bringing life to a space. Having an instrument or a music player in your living room “will make your home’s energy more vibrant.” So, while it may not be a good idea to display your whole guitar or baseball shirt collection, it might be smart to leave one such item in the right place… just so the prospective buyer can perceive the energy of your home.
Another important thing I tell my clients is to get a fresh coat of paint on their walls. That’s even if you painted 5 years ago and the paint still looks great. Why? Because people perceive and love a fresh feel. Paint is the cheapest upgrade you can accomplish that has the maximum impact. They won’t see that you changed the stove a year ago, but they will notice that this accent wall in the right place looks very cozy to cuddle by with their furry friend. Buying a home is an emotional decision! You have to appeal to their emotions!
Finally, if you are selling your house for reasons related to divorce, job loss or any “negative” event in your life, be very sure to smudge your home with sage and also install a salt water cure so that you dispel lingering negative energy before your first showing.
The best part of this is that Feng Shui consultants like myself who work remotely only charge a fraction of what a staging company might charge you for their services, and you most likely will achieve better results by rearranging, repainting and repositionning your own furniture than renting out their furniture.
So bottom line: staging with Feng Shui will allow prospective buyers to feel good in your house and they won’t even know why.
And that’s the best reason to use Feng Shui when decorating your home.