It’s the Year of the Fire Monkey — PHOTOS
Luxury Realtor Florence Shapiro had almost closed a deal on a luxury golf course home in Summerlin when the clients made one request: They wanted to bring a feng shui master from China to look at the house.
The consultant arrived with apprentices and a pile of boxes containing a compass and other tools, recalled Shapiro, a partner in the Shapiro & Sher Group at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Nevada Properties. After about an hour of assessing the house, he came downstairs shaking his head.
“The people loved the house, but he came down and said, ‘It’s not feng shui’ and they didn’t buy it,” Shapiro said.
It was an important lesson for Shapiro, who’s one of a number of Las Vegas area Realtors and homebuilders who take the ancient Chinese art of energy balancing into account when marketing homes. They’re looking to attract buyers from Asia, as well as the growing group of feng shui aficionados here in the United States.
“We have a healthy representation of Asian buyers who find (feng shui) very important when they’re buying,” said Jen Haack, marketing manager for the Las Vegas division of KB Homes. “Even with younger Asian buyers, we’re finding that they bring family members with them who hold those traditional beliefs.”
While there are many schools of feng shui, all focus on harmonizing the flow of energy — or chi — through a property, incorporating each of the five elements: water, wood, fire, earth and metal.
“It’s like acupuncture for your home,” said Pamela Edwards Ryan, a local feng shui master who along with her husband, Michael, consults with businesses and homeowners.
The process can start before a single gallon of concrete is poured. At KB Homes, architects in the company’s corporate office give their plans to a feng shui consultant for review. Once model homes are complete, Haack uses a decorator who ensures that everything from the colors to the number of chairs around a dining room table is chosen with feng shui in mind.
For custom homebuyers, even the shape of the lot can come under scrutiny. A fan-shaped lot with the narrow end facing the street will draw energy into the home, increasing prosperity, said Mary Swick, another Las Vegas area feng shui consultant. The opposite shape, not so much.
“That’s all talk and no action,” she said.
Realtors staging homes often focus on feng shui “cures” — removing items like dead plants that symbolize stagnant energy, or moving beds to a “command” position far from the bedroom door.
A stove placed next to the sink is a big no-no, as water and fire are considered opposing elements. That’s an easy fix, but if the front door faces the staircase?
“I have some clients that will automatically leave,” says Shapiro, who estimates about 20 percent of the buyers she sees have an interest in feng shui.
Several decades ago, when real estate broker Vickey England began selling homes, she noticed that certain properties evoked an emotional response.
“I would intuitively walk in the door and some houses would work and some wouldn’t. Sometimes I fall in love with a property, I think it’s perfect and I can’t sell it.”
England began consulting with Swick on those problem cases. She said she often sees more interest in a home after following Swick’s advice, much of which seems to her like straightforward design wisdom — putting a fountain near the front door to welcome visitors, or arranging furniture to encourage conversation.
“At the end of the day I’m selling sanctuaries, environments where people come through the door and live their lives,” said England, a consultant with Coldwell Banker Premier Realty. “It’s always been important to me that people feel safe and welcomed.”
Want to apply feng shui to your home? Start with the floor, Swick suggests, clearing away any boxes waiting to be sorted. “These are always temporary things; it’s like being in limbo. We want to keep our pathways open and free.”
Another key area is the front door, where feng shui experts believe opportunity literally comes knocking. Anyone looking for a new job or more prosperity in the new year should pay special attention to this “mouth of chi,” Swick said.
“Sweep it, hose it down, paint it, put a brightly colored potted plant arrangement there, and make sure the doorbell works,” she said.
Many Western feng shui practitioners offer similar practical tips. There’s also a classical, Eastern tradition that sees feng shui as part of a larger metaphysical system capable of predicting everything from a person’s business success to their love life based on the time of their birth.
For those steeped in that tradition, the Chinese New Year on Feb. 8 presents new opportunities and challenges, and homes need to be adjusted accordingly, said Ryans.
“Most people make the assumption that when the year changes, you’re still the same person that you were in 2015, and that’s not the case when we’re talking about energetic alignments,” Michael Ryan said.
In 2016, the Year of the Fire Monkey, “those born in a monkey year will see their energy expand,” he said. “If they need to make strides forward in their life, this is the year to level up and take on those challenges.” People born under the sign of the tiger “need to be careful how they spend their money, and take care of their health. This is not a year to take risky gambles.”
“The most advantageous energy will be in the southwest sector this year, so it’s good to open windows, use entrances and activate energy in that area,” adds Pamela Edwards Ryan.
If all that is a little hard to swallow, you can always follow this bit of Michael Ryan’s advice for 2016: “Anybody who has clutter in the center of their home or office should clear it out of the way, and that will improve matters.”
Sound advice in any year.