Archive for the ‘Real Estate’ Category
11
I don’t know if you’ve noticed— it’s certainly hard to miss— but the landscape around Austin is changing. As is the skyline. As is the… well, the feel of the city. The flavor.
Some Austinites are not excited about the changes going on. The corporations moving in, the family-owned and operated businesses go down while the thirty-six story condos go up. People who have lived here all their lives (or even just more than ten years) say that this is a different city than the one they remember. Back when they might not even have called Austin a “city.”
There was a time when Motorola was just a type of phone people had, not a place where they worked. When video games were a thing people played, not designed. Where Dell was a thing from a song about a farmer, not a computer company. In short, there was a time when Austin was a big, friendly village where everyone seemed to know everyone.
Now, it’s hard to see the sky without noticing the foreboding skeleton of an incoming condominium projects or a crane in your periphery. Developers are buying up land and displacing local businesses in order to get the best spot downtown for a high rise that will dwarf all the others, that will sell for more money, that will be nicer and closer to all the downtown Austin attractions.
But what are those attractions?
09
What do you know about Feng Shui? If you’re like most people, you probably are not even sure if I spelled it right just now. Maybe you picture an old man doing the world’s slowest kung fu at dawn (that’s Tai Chi, totally different.) Feng shui is a sorta guidebook about the placement and architecture of a house to allow good flow of energy. And it’s not just placement of the bed and couch. The placement of the actual house and landscaping will affect the ch’i (energy) of the house in a big way. Let’s start with a few tips to bear in mind when looking examining the location for your dream home.
1. First and most important, research the history of a property. Find out what happened with the previous tenants, and the ones before them. And even the ones before them. Ask neighbors, or selling agent. If all the previous inhabitants have had money problems, family problems, etc., chances are there’s bad feng shui going on. Best to move on and look for another house.
2. Pay attention to the road placement. The road in front of your house should not be pointing directly into your home. If a house is sitting at a dead end, in a T-intersection, or in the center of cul-de-sac, then energy is constantly flowing straight down that road into the house, then building up and stagnating there. This is not good; the ch’i must continue to flow, like air. If it gets stuck in your home, it can go bad.