Coffee Break Blog!

It's Just Not Me!

Have you ever wondered why it is one person will come into a home for sale and just love it, and person will look at the same home and just hate it?

Clients often ask me about this.  They just don’t understand how two people could have such differing opinions about their house for sale.  One reason this occurs is because buyers are unique with individual personalities.  People try in the first 10-15 seconds of entering a house, to fit their personalities into the home.

This is a tall order.  To complicate the task of this matching, consider that each home also has a “personality,” and for the buyer to move forward, they must feel a match of their personality to that of the house.

What often happens is that a home seller will emphasize the “open-space” and really highlight the soaring ceilings and the huge window at the prow of the ceiling.  The more the homes’ openness is emphasized, the more it serves to turn away the approximately 38.3 percent of buyers who say they prefer completely separate areas for kitchen or family room, or prefer them side by side but with a wall between.

Here is how I look at it.  A feature is a feature is a feature, but the benefit is different for each buyer’s personality. Different people see things in different ways, and to be successful, it’s imperative to speak the language of all the potential buyers.

What's Your Gut Say?

Let’s face it:  buying a house is a big deal for most people.  Buying the “right” house is even a bigger deal.

The right house must not only meet most of the buyer’s need and criteria, it must also “feel good” when they are touring it before they’ll write an offer.  I advise people to look at all the data for a prudent “buy” decision.  However, I also advise them to listen to their gut!  How does the house make you feel?

So what happens when your house is speaking to too many buyer’s guts in a negative way and they are walking right back out and buying other houses?  Your house looks great, the yard is mowed and all your treasures (clutter) is gone.  However, no offers.

What to do?

Call a house healer.  Yup – I said house healer.  No joke – there are people who make a living removing bad karma from your house.

David Franklin Farkas is one of these people. A Massachusetts-based consultant who works primarily with home owners and real estate professionals, Farkas has done his work on hundreds of houses, land parcels, and even commercial buildings, clearing the energy to make way for a sale or to make a place more welcoming, in general.

“People get a feeling whether a house is right for them almost immediately when they walk around the house,” Farkas says. “Real estate agents assume that that ‘feeling’ is subjective and that what’s causing bad energy can’t be changed.”

But that’s not true, he says. Potential buyers “respond to is the emotional history attached to the house. These issues can be dealt with, creating a house that now feels neutral or positive to almost everybody.”

Farkas has spent more than three decades developing a specific protocol for clearing emotional and spiritual baggage from buildings and land. He blends the traditions of shamanism, spiritual healing, remote viewing, and other methods. In short, when Farkas does a clearing, he takes stock of what is present on the premises and clears out anything that is negatively impacting the property, and then invites in positive energies to fill the void.

Do-It-Yourself: Smudging

There are other alternative — some may say off-the-wall — ways of bringing good vibes to your listings. If you’d like to try something quick yourself, you can always go for the Native American tradition of “smudging” a home to banish the negative energies.

This is traditionally done with sweet grass and sage or with white sage alone. Simply walk around the house with the smudge stick smoldering and waft the smoke into all corners, doorways, and windows while thinking hard about how you want the space to be cleared of all negative energies.

However, be careful with the smoldering stick. It can drop embers that could start a fire. And don’t do this just before an open house or showing; it needs time to air out afterwards so it doesn’t smell like sage. Some people might find the smell offensive.

Or you can try this trick using strong, clear sounding bells. It’s the same idea, just ring the bells in each corner, doorway, and window and announce that all negative energies must leave.

Falling ill while traveling overseas

I recently read about a fellow who went for a midnight walk on the beach of a small Thai village he thought made the perfect ending to his first day on the Phi Phi Islands, a tropical archipelago in the Andaman Sea. But he probably should have opted out of the “fresh” pineapple smoothie offered by a beachside vendor before turning in for the night. By 2:00 a.m., he was at the clinic where he’d spent two days with severe food poisoning… and a few thousand dollars. As this person found out, getting injured or falling ill while traveling overseas can be more than just an inconvenience. Improper medical care, especially in undeveloped countries, can slow your recovery… and even lead to long-term health problems. Here are few tips to help you avoid this:

• Check with your doctor for advice and vaccinations appropriate to the area you will be visiting.

• Be up to date with your regular vaccinations before your trip.

• Register with the local U.S. Embassy at your destination. You can do this at travel.state.gov.

• Bring all the medication you take regularly, as well as a back-up supply.

• Purchase travel health insurance. The policy you have at home probably won’t cover your medical care overseas (or an expensive evacuation if that becomes necessary).

• Practice basic health and safety: Wear your seatbelt, wash hands thoroughly and often, and wear a helmet while riding a scooter or motorcycle.

We never wanted to move again . . .

Why would anyone consider moving, given that just a few years ago we moved to a new house that we expected to be our last? The short answer is: Life changes -- often in ways you don't expect. And sometimes those changes make you re-evaluate what you're doing, where you're doing it and what you want out of the rest of your life.