How to Buy a House with Good Feng Shui

General rules of how to look at a house with Fengshui perspective;

Your surroundings can have a huge impact on your life – to the point of affecting your personal happiness, your prosperity, even the opportunities that come to you in your life — thus making your choice of home a very important one. Because most of the important moments in our lives occur in our houses, the house itself becomes more than just four walls where we eat and sleep. That’s why careful consideration is called for if you are thinking about purchasing another home.

So what do you look for when you are considering purchasing a new home? It comes down to two things: the tangible and the intangible. The tangible items include price, location, size, and condition. The intangible includes considerations such as location on a street, how the home is situated on the lot, its relationship to other buildings or homes, how the home flows inside, and situations such as whether the former occupants were ill, in financial trouble, etc.

These are the types of considerations that are taken into account when you want to assess the feng shui of a home. Of course, these are not all of the elements that make up a home with good feng shui, but these are some of the important considerations. Hopefully, this will serve as a guide for helping you select a home that is right for you and your family.

1. Buy a new house or “successful” house. A new home does not have a history, making these the optimal choice. However, if you are looking at a preowned home, buy one from someone who is moving into a bigger house, got a huge promotion and is moving, or has won the lottery and is buying a villa in Tuscany. Then, you are buying into good feng shui and positive energy.

Houses that are for sale from a divorce, a foreclosure, or where there is a serious illness, or other affliction are not the best choice. To purchase a home such as this can mean that you are buying those problems too. How so? The house might be the problem. Or, there might be a landscape or topographical element causing the difficulty. It’s best to avoid these kinds of homes.

2. Buy high or level ground. Houses that are situated on the side of a hill or where the back slopes away from the house are “losing ground.” Better also to buy a house where the lot is wider at the back than the front. Also, try to buy a regular-shaped lot. Square or rectangle shaped lots are especially good.

3. The inside story. Make sure bedrooms are not over a garage, kitchen, laundry room, or open space below. Also be sure there are no bathrooms over a dining area or kitchen. This can cause illness in the house. Look at the arrangement of bedrooms to bathrooms so that beds won’t share a common wall with a toilet.

4. Get support. It's best for land to either be level or have a rise at the back of the house. Land that falls away at the back of the house creates loss and difficulties getting recognition and promotion. If the house has a building or a hill at its back, then it is supported.

5. Open up. If the house faces open land or has a wide, open area in front of it, then it has the “bright hall effect.” This is extremely auspicious. Think of the White House in Washington with the large expanse of lawn in the front or the front of the grand Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina.

Make sure the house is not overwhelmed by landscaping. If there is a tree too close to the house, especially if it is in line with the front door, this is not good and will prevent opportunities for the homeowner. Consider removing the tree. Likewise, if plants and shrubs look like they’re taking over the house (either planted too closely or growing on the walls), consider removing these as well and replanting elsewhere. A house should not be smothered by the landscaping.

6. Look both ways before buying. What’s to the right and left of the house? Is there a house or building that seems to impose itself on this house? If the house or the land on your left is higher, this is good, as it is tapping the dragon energy. It is even more fortunate if the house to your left (as you look out of the house) is in the East. Is there a house with a pointed roof, a corner of the home pointed at your front door, etc., or aimed at the house?

Be sure to look at the approach to the house. Is it in a cul-de-sac? If the road ends at a straight line to the house, this is not good. Also, houses with a road behind and in front of the house suffer, and corrections can’t be made for these. Long straight driveways that end at the house, or roads that stop at the house, are another problem, but can be corrected with plants or mirrors.

7. What’s the situation? The house should be situated on the lot correctly, which means it should not be set back behind the half-way line of the lot. It is better to sit a little forward in the lot than too far back.

8. What is in the Southwest and Northwest? These are the two most important directions in a home. The Northwest should never have an open flame, such as from a gas stove or fireplace. If there is one there, move on to another house. This is feng shui taboo. To have a home such as this is to invite severe difficulties for the man of the house.

Also, look at the SW; this is the position of the woman or mother of the house. If there is a storeroom or bathroom located here, there could be marital difficulties and unhappiness. Consult with a feng shui practitioner about this if you just love the house, but it has trouble in the SW corner.

Good luck with the purchase of your new home!

Immigrants Nudge Builders to Consider New Traditions

Foreign-born homebuyers are changing American design to accommodate their cultural traditions.

For instance, Centex Homes has largely abandoned models featuring a stairway leading up from the foyer that lines up exactly with the front door. That's because in many Asian communities, such an alignment is bad feng shui. It portends that luck will run out of the house.

Home builders in the South and West have begun building homes with more and smaller bedrooms than the traditional four-bedroom house to appeal to some Hispanic immigrant families in which many generations live under one roof.

In areas where there are many Hindu families, there is a demand for homes that reflect vastu shastra, an Indian design philosophy which suggests building homes facing east to soak up sunlight, while placing the kitchen in the center as the symbolic heart of the home.

Some Indian buyers strongly reject foreclosed homes because vastu shastra teaches that it's best to live in a home with positive energy, where the previous residents have been happy and prosperous.

Foreign-born residents make up a growing share of U.S. home owners at all income levels, but particularly first-time buyers, according to Zhu Xiao Di, a senior research analyst at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. Foreign-born residents make up about 16 percent of recent homebuyers in Maryland, 15 percent in Virginia, and 12 percent in the District, according to the center's analysis of U.S. Census data.

Feng shui and Foreclosre

I recently got to know a mom at the school who has been looking for her dream house in San Diego since 2001. We instantly have a click talking about Feng shui and the house searching. She told me that she was looking for a good deal at the start of her search. She looked a lot of bank owned and foreclosure houses. Then she found out that all of those houses had serious problems in the view of Feng Shui. She then gave up seeing any foreclosures.

Isn't that interesting?

I also came across an article on this issue:

RealEstate.msn.com reports, “almost 500,000 foreclosures were filed in the first

Almost 500,000 foreclosures were filed in the first quarter of 2007. (IStock Photo)

quarter of 2007. There was one new foreclosure for every 1,117 U.S. households in January 2006 compared to the same period a year earlier.”

However, in the brave new world of home buying, one persons’ misfortune can quickly become someone else’s fortune. Typically, investors looking to buy a home for less than its market value, find foreclosure homes very lucrative. Consumers going the foreclosure route can find family homes with high market prices and only pay half its value, saving them thousands of dollars.

Feng Shui

But while going the foreclosure route has its financial advantages, the property itself may be draped in bad luck. Kathryn Weber, a certified master practitioner in feng shui and the publisher of Red Lotus Letter, a weekly ezine, suggests buying foreclosures could perpetuate “bad energy.”

In her article, “How to Buy a House with Good Feng Shui,” featured in Selfgrowth.com, Weber suggests buying feng shui comes down to two things:
1.) The tangible items: price, location, size, and condition.
2.) The intangible location on a street; how the home is situated on the lot; its relationship to other buildings or homes; how the home flows inside; and situations such as whether the former occupants were ill, in financial trouble, etc.

Positive Energy
“If you are looking at a preowned home, buy one from someone who is moving into a bigger house or got a huge promotion and is relocating,” Weber suggests. “Houses that are for sale from a divorce, a foreclosure, or where there was serious illness or other afflictions are not the best choices.”

Recycling the Past
As the new owner, you may be walking into the prospective home with a clean slate. But according to feng shui principles, when you buy a home, you also buy the problems that existed at that home with the previous owner. The reason behind the bad energy—the house itself. “Or, there might be a landscape or topographical element causing the difficulty.” Weber says it’s best to avoid these kinds of homes.

Whether you’re a believer in this ancient Chinese practice or not, don’t always judge a house simply on its price tag. Sometimes you have to look beyond the walls to really see its worth.