The newly built two-story home in scenic Santa Clara County, Calif., is spacious and near good schools. Just as important for owner Raquel Choi is that the staircase doesn’t end at the front door but curves toward the wall.
“We were lucky to find this house,” said Choi, who bought her new home last year. “The lot is pie-shaped. It sits on a corner, not at the end of a `T’ stop. And there’s nothing blocking the front of the house.”
The specific features that appealed to Choi didn’t all come into place by accident. The lot and house, like others in the 72-home tract, were designed by developer Jerry Chen according to the Chinese principles of feng shui, with Asian buyers like the Chois in mind.
Followers of feng shui believe certain designs create a positive energy called chi in the house that can bring luck, health and wealth to its owners.
In an effort to set himself apart from other developers and woo Asian buyers, Chen builds and markets homes tailored to their tastes. Though a few mainstream and ethnic developers also adapt some of their designs in a similar way, Chen seems to be among the few who, from start to finish, keep an eye on the needs of potential Asian clients.
“I think what he’s doing is very interesting and makes for interesting cultural diversity,” said Jim Derryberry, director of San Jose’s Planning, Building and Code Enforcement.
And the strategy’s paid off for Chen. More than 80 percent of buyers in his Lion Estates development are Asian, mostly Chinese and Vietnamese. The $60 million development also includes larger, customized homes starting at $900,000. Eight out of 10 buyers on the waiting list to buy the customized homes once they’re put up for sale are Asians.
“You don’t have to be told there’s a big Asian market out there,” says Chen, who built the Lion Plaza in San Jose in the 1980s, then the largest Asian mall in northern California. “You see it every weekend. I’m Asian, I share the same background with these people and I know what their needs are. So why would you worry about catering to some other market you’re not familiar with?”
Asians have emerged as a major force in the housing market. Asian names lead the list of the top 25 common surnames of home buyers in Santa Clara County and top the list of surnames of home buyers who paid more than $500,000 for homes. Studies show Chinese are more likely to own their own home than any other group, including college-educated whites.
“A lot of Asians like to have a tangible relationship with their investment. Owning a home is very desirable,” said Irene Jhin, a publisher of the Chinese New Home Buyer’s Guide, a local California magazine.
While some may dismiss it as superstition, many families with Chinese, Filipino and South Asian descent only buy homes that are good for feng shui, which literally means wind and water.
Feng shui is a Chinese philosophy established 5,000 years ago that strives to harness the positive energy, or chi, of the environment. It sets down principles for everything from how a house sits on its lot to the placement of walls and windows.
Among Asian cultures, specific beliefs may vary. Some Indians practice vasthu sasthra, which says that certain navigational directions of homes and businesses bring more harmony than others.
Many Chinese and Southeast Asians, for example, won’t touch a home that has the number four in the address because in Chinese it sounds like the word for death. Vietnamese, however, avoid homes with numbers that add to numbers ending in zero. Other won’t go near a house where the kitchen is over the master bedroom for fear it might cause marital discord. Lots must be pie shaped, with more space in the back than front to produce good chi.
Feng shui adherents believe a house retains the psychic baggage of its occupants and can store negative energy, caused by a divorce, death or just plain bad luck. Rather than live off someone else’s bad vibes, many Chinese and other Asians prefer to buy a new house and cultivate their own chi.
Because of this, the demand for new homes among Asians is overwhelming. Nearly 70 percent of the Chinese in the market for a home prefer a new home over a pre-owned one, according to a survey by Chinese Media Group.
Sally Kwok, a Los-Altos based real estate agent, said her personal survey of new home developers showed that 80 percent of visitors to new home sites were Asians. Housing developer Kaufman and Broad says as many as half of its buyers in some developments in the South Bay are Asians.
Many of the traditional homes in the area may not work for the new immigrants. For instance, the tract homes of the 1960s and ’70s are often too small to accommodate extended Asian families and don’t meet the principles of feng shui.
Often, Asians want homes with as many as five or more bedrooms to accommodate grandparents and other relatives. Chen’s homes, for example, come with as many as six bedrooms. And he usually makes sure there are models with a bedroom and bathroom downstairs for elderly parents.
Most other Asian home developers in the area aren’t marketing their homes to Asians to the extent that Chen does, because demand for homes is so brisk among non-Asians.
But some mainstream developers have also caught on in the past few years.
Shea Industries, for example, chooses designs where staircases don’t end at the door because many Asians believe chi and the occupants’ wealth will go straight out the door, says Shea president Daniel Hancock.
Kaufman and Broad decided to modify design elements it may otherwise use for mainstream markets.
One signature feature of Kaufman and Broad homes is that one can see through to the backyard, usually through a window or door, from the front entrance,
“This is part of our philosophy of horizontal volume,” said Manny Gonzalez, executive director of design for the company. “When you can see the back of the property from the front door, it feels very spacious and big.”
However, that design element is a big no-no for Asians who believe in feng shui because good chi will go straight into the front door and out the back, without lingering in the home.
If Asians make up a big chunk of a development’s market, Gonzalez says he’ll choose floor plans in which the usual sliding door or window is turned into a solid wall.
