http://priscillapriscillacompanyremaxvernon.point2agent.com/Listing/VirtualTour.ashx?listingid=34012048

The house has 3 bedrooms on the main floor — two are offices. Everyone window has a view .. either of Lake Okanagan in British Columbia; or the front yard looking up our driveway … to another road that also goes up a hill. So we are at the bottom of a steep driveway.

The whole lower floor is also completed with two other bedroom and living room/bar area and some fabulous storage.

Thanks so much.
Colleen

WSFS House for Sale Feng Shui Tricks 1 of 2

WSFS House for Sale Feng Shui Tricks 2 of 2

A few words from Jodi:

It has been my pleasure to provide Staging Services to many Realtors and Sellers in the 4 State Area. As an Accredited Staging Professional and Feng Shui Consultant, my mission is…

Let me not strive to be a person of success, but a person of value. And when I am a person of value to my company, my clients, and my community, then I will truly be successful.

Congratulations Jodi!

And here are Jodi’s Three Ideas for the month

1.  Find out how to list your house on Staged Homes.com/jodispickler.
2.  94.8% of Accredited Staged Homes sell on average in 37 days compared to Non-Staged Homes 182 days on market.
3.  Enhance your Health and Family 

Restful/Zestful Blog
Part 1:  Are you really ready to sell?  A Real Estate Feng Shui analysis might help. 
By Lorrie Webb Grillo, Certified Practitioner of Essential Feng Shui®
Thriving Spaces, Denver, CO

You’ve been thinking about putting your house on the market to see what will happen. You’re not sure if you really want to sell right now because of the market, but you want to know what it could sell for.  You talk to a real estate agent who is an expert at pricing, comparing your home to the competition, marketing your home to potential buyers, and negotiating that sales contract.  So far, so good.  But, are you really ready to sell?

If not, your home may linger in the market. 

There are a lot of determining factors involved in putting your home on the market.     One such factor you may not have thought of is a Feng Shui analysis.  Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese practice of object placement in an environment to change the energy of the space and ultimately of the people using the space; in this case, a Feng Shui analysis’ purpose is to create positive energy which could lead to a faster home sale.  Feng Shui is not used in lieu of all your Realtor’s tools to market and sell your home.

The first step in this kind of analysis is for the Feng Shui practitioner to ask you some questions about your goals for selling your home.  Are you looking for a quick sale so you can move before the start of the school year?  Will one person have to move first and settle somewhere else while other members of the family stay put until the house sells?  Are you downsizing or upsizing due to family circumstances?  All of the answers will help the Feng Shui practitioner make recommendations that will help you reach your specific goals.  

A most important aspect of a Feng Shui analysis is to ascertain your connectedness to the space and your willingness to say good-bye to the house as a whole, and/or to each room specifically.  This process – whether formal and vocal or informal and silent – is very personal and can be deeply moving for owners.  Its purpose is to help you to begin to see yourself  in a new way:  as sellers of the home instead of its owners.  New owners will be invited and welcomed in as the space is cleared; the process begins with this good-bye.  It can be a very powerful experience for all family members. 

A Feng Shui practitioner can give you some guidelines for detaching from a home, but there aren’t any right ways of saying good-bye.  The process should feel natural and comfortable.  Some ideas include:

*  having each family member write a poem, sing a song or make a drawing about an experience of being in the home and sharing that with other family members

*  lighting candles and saying a blessing

*  inviting friends over for a farewell party, announcing your intention of leaving the space but maintaining your circle of friends. 

Once you’ve said your good-byes, there are space-clearing measures and Feng Shui practices that will help potential buyers to feel welcomed into the space.  See Part 2 of the Real Estate Feng Shui Analysis in next week’s blog for more. 

(This blog post was has been modified from its original version written for Perry & Co. Real Estate Professionals by the author.) 

Stay tuned for Part 2, and check out Lorrie’s Restful/Zestful Blog!

This is an action-packed hour and you’ll need the Bagua Map, the Five Elements Chart and the 10 Ch’i Enhancements handouts.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/realestatetherapist

Enjoy!

A. Yes! It sounds like you’ve done quite a bit to prepare your house for their arrival, and you’ve done a great job. Now, let’s find a way that you can connect with them, the future resident of the home. In other words, you’ve already taken care of the Seen Environment, now let’s focus on the Unseen Environment. You have many choices inluding writing them a letter, welcoming them into the space. It might look something like this:

Thank you for your choice to continue caring for this home. We know that it will in turn take very good care of you and your family. We’ve spent many years here, and filled it with love for you. Within its walls, you’ll find comfort, safety, gratitude, laughter and deep connection. Although our needs have changed, this home is ready for you and everything you need it to be.

Our children have each grown up here, taken their first steps, celebrated numerous birthdays and run wild down the halls. Our pets have slept on the stairs, barked at the doorbell, and climbed through the windows. We have fought in the garage, danced in the living room, slept under the skylight and giggled in the closets. And these happinesses would not have been possible without the magnificence of all that this glorious home has to offer.

If I could speak for this house, I would tell you: Welcome. Welcome from the base boards and attic! Welcome from the windows to the fireplace! Welcome from the appliances to the crown moulding! Welcome all of you from all me! Welcome!

Many Blessings, Terese and the entire family

Of course, you’ll have your own words, and you may choose to write a letter or create a collage or do something else as a family. Sometimes, I’ve found that one of the kids isn’t ready to let go, and so he’s holding onto the house, preventing or delaying its release. Get everyone involved in doing something together – Something that can hold the complete tranformation as having already been completed.

Let us know how it goes and we look forward to seeing photos of your new home!

Liv Kellgren, WSFS Programs Director

So, I hired a heavy duty cleaning service to come in and clean the house. She also had a garage sale to get rid of lots of “stuff.” That managed to stir things up for awhile and she did beautifully on the chemo.

In April 2008, she was rushed to the hospital with a severe case of pneumonia, sepsis, and dementia/delusion. While she was in ICU, I started to clear out her house (I needed something to do since I was only allowed in her room for one hour a day). The doctors said she wouldn’t survive the pneumonia so I got her house ready for sale. I cleared the house out entirely, got new carpet and painted the walls…

Do I have to tell you the end of this story? She managed to get out of ICU and a few weeks later the dementia/delusional state suddenly cleared and she was back to normal (except for the lung cancer). Oh! and I was left with the job of telling my mother she had no house to go back to!

It all worked out in the end – I moved her to a nearby assisted living home that I’ve been volunteering at for the past 7 years and she is happy there.

So the moral of the story here – people just don’t realize how much clutter can affect them!

WSFS Alumni Graduate Practitioner, Jill K.

Listen as Terah Kathryn Collins and Holly Ziegler, author of Sell Your Home Faster with Feng Shui and Buy Your Home Smarter with Feng Shui, talk about Feng Shui and Real Estate.

Last update: 10:05 a.m. EDT Aug. 12, 2008

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Aug 12, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Say goodbye to the days when baking a batch of cookies and putting out fresh flowers before an open house would be enough to sell your home. In today’s market, it takes more than that to attract buyers, and frustrated home sellers are resorting to some unusual methods to get their homes noticed. From clever to downright bizarre, FrontDoor.com – HGTV’s new award-winning real estate site – shares its top ten favorite unusual home selling tactics. ( http://www.frontdoor.com/top10)
1. Hold an open house party. Open houses are the norm when selling a home, but some sellers are upping the ante on the open house by offering wine, catered food, live music and prizes. A fancy shindig could start a buzz on your property and make your home memorable.
2. Take home staging to the extreme. It’s well known that staging your home can help it sell faster, but some sellers are taking staging a step further with an ancient Chinese philosophy. Feng shui stagers rearrange the elements of a home to improve its chi, or energy. Good chi makes potential buyers feel more welcome.

3. Help serious buyers with financing. Many people who want to buy a home can’t qualify for a standard mortgage right now, so sellers are offering a helping hand. Sellers have a few options when it comes to assisting buyers with financing, including offering lease-to-own deals, offering financing themselves, paying for closing costs or paying for points to lower the interest rate.
4. Have a little faith. Burying statues or medals of St. Joseph in the earth is a tradition that dates back hundreds of years. Most recently, home sellers have been burying the patron saint of family and household needs in their yards to help their homes sell faster. Thousands of sellers swear that a little divine intervention helped them get a sale.
5. Throw in some extravagant extras. In the past, a free big-screen TV was enough of an incentive to get your home noticed. Times have changed, and incentives are becoming more and more substantial. Sellers are throwing in all kinds of goodies, like free cars, vacations, pricey home upgrades and monetary incentives like a year’s mortgage or a furniture stipend. One woman in Florida is even offering herself as an incentive – she hopes to marry the man who buys her home.
6. Make your home a grand prize. After conventional methods fall short, some sellers are holding raffles and essay contests and giving their homes to the winners. This method is sure to draw attention, but beware: home lotteries are illegal in many states, so find out your state’s regulations.
7. Get Web savvy. If the traditional method of selling your home through a real estate agent doesn’t appeal to you, you may find an alternative process on the Web. Some sellers are auctioning off their homes on eBay, while others are swapping properties through sites like Pad4Pad.com and DomuSwap.com.
8. Let your house do the talking. After taking the traditional route of putting a For Sale sign in your front yard and placing an ad in the newspaper, try some hi-tech advertising. Some sellers and agents are using the Talking House radio transmitter, which allows you to record a customized message about the features of your home. Buyers can tune into a radio station to hear this message as they drive by your house.
9. Put your house on the auction block. Auctions are no longer just for homes that have been foreclosed on. Sellers looking to sell their homes quickly are choosing the auction route. Keep in mind that the total costs of auctioning off a home are often the same or more than the costs of selling a home through an agent.
10. Let buyers sleep on it. For serious potential buyers who are on the fence about buying your home, let them sleep on it, literally. By letting buyers spend the night in your home, you’re allowing them to get the full experience of living there. A trial run could be just what they need to sign on the dotted line. Be sure to consult with your real estate agent or attorney first.
About FrontDoor
FrontDoor.com ( http://www.frontdoor.com) is an online real estate listing service powered by HGTV, the No.1 source for home-related media content. The award-winning site currently offers more than 3 million listings of homes for sale and partners with other leaders in the home shelter category including Realogy Corporation, Prudential Real Estate and Leading Real Estate Companies of the World(TM). In addition to providing users with the latest real estate listings, FrontDoor houses expert HGTV advice and videos along with original Web series and a comprehensive library of engaging, interactive tools, guides and information.