Here’s how we bring down housing prices
According to magic that for some reason has the veneer of legitimacy in our society, the address numbering system in the San Fransisco Bay area is unlucky:
Under a numbering system established by Alameda County in the 1950s, addresses are assigned based on how far the homes are from downtown Oakland, a method that puts five digits on almost every mailbox in Hayward and other cities in the county.
The numbers have always been hard to remember, but home builders recently raised concerns that they may decrease property values because the odds are greater that an address will carry a number considered unlucky by feng shui practitioners.
Feng shui holds that the way dwellings are designed can affect the fortunes and health of inhabitants.
So, this seems a good built-in mechanism for keeping the population, and thus housing prices, low in the area. But some rich hippies don’t like it:
Real estate agent Lisa Coen, of nearby Pleasanton, who also runs a feng shui consulting firm [her firm's website is here], said she has advised developers on how to make homes attractive to buyers who would not want to live at the end of a cul-de-sac or where a door opens onto a staircase.
“It does matter to some people. It really does matter,” Coen said. “They won’t buy a house … if the number’s not right.”
I’d tell them to move someplace else. But that’s just me.
December 28th, 2005 at 4:21 am
Please let me off this grid
Alameda County, California assigns addresses based on how far a building is from downtown Oakland, which is the county seat. You might not think, even if you lived in semi-remote…