My first thought on seeing this chart was that I ought to call it "I want that house"! Mars the ruler of the property is right on the ascendant. There is no doubt that it ticked all my boxes and I really like it, but some reason is required here....I tried the non astrological route by asking friends and family but they gave me conflicting answers based in all cases on what they wanted me to do from their own perspective! So no rationality there. Hence, on to the horary...

My question, 4th July 2006, London, 8.26 a.m. BST, was therefore "should I buy the house?" and the chart is frankly not encouraging !! It has moon in Via Combusta and void, not to mention ruling the 12th house. My ruler, sun in cancer is also somewhat debilitated. So maybe nothing will come of it but "why?" it is hard to believe when I am sooo keen.

In fact, what I was really looking for was, "will it be a good investment?" Not to make lots of money but just to be sure i won't lose lots. But the ruler of the 2nd house is mercury about to turn retrograde and return to Cancer. where it will conjunct my ruler. Normally when a retrograde represents a person I take it as a change of mind but here it represents my money, which should remain in the condition that it is in now, right...? It can't change its mind and it isn't going anywhere - unless we are just about to encounter an international financial crisis..run on banks etc etc ..????

And to make things even more interesting Jupiter (ruler of 8th and 5th) is right there in the property on the 4th house cusp and just about to go direct. I really don't have a clue what that means. And that is still ignoring the, also angular, neptune.....

So the help I require is trying to understand what this almost retrograde mercury, and the almsot direct jupiter mean in this case.

I may be way off on this, but I was more interested in Jupiter's squares to everything from the 4th. I took the 7th as the 'seller'; therefore Jupiter is the ruler of the seller's money/assets (and 11th of hopes): perhaps the seller has overinflated the price/worth of the house (since it squares Mars the sig. of the 4th); having Neptune on the cusp of the seller would strengthen this argument for me. Either that, or they are lying about something to do with the house; that Jupiter is squaring Saturn (ruler of 'structure') in the 12th perhaps there are some structural problems that you've been unaware of?

If this is the case, the VOC/via Combusta moon in the 3rd would be a clear warning to *not* buy the house or sign a contract; your money (about to turn Rx) means you would get a raw deal; Jupiter about to go direct may mean the seller changes the price...?

I've done this without any of my references in front of me, so, a pinch of salt, please!

Thanks Archergirl for your insights on the Jupiter. I'll give you a little more background ( I was a little parsimonius with info before as I was trying to stick to the astrological question rather than the personal one- you picked up on a deception element and it was partly me keeping stuff under wraps!).

I had thought that the property might be overpriced- , the seller is very candid and honest but I thought that the agent seemed to have overpriced all its properties compared to the other agent in the same town. There are no intrinsic structural problems with the property itself, but it is right on the seafront and therefore s.t. storm flooding ( and global warming sea level rises perhaps?)-all of which the combination of jupiter and neptune on angles shows. Furthermore this tidal flooding issue had raised the issue of a childhood recurring nightmare in which I drown in a tidal wave! All this is there in the chart with the neptune and the emphasis on the 12th house.

So, while I absolutely loved the house design and the location I was worried about losing my assets and my life to the sea.....! So I was procrastinating about making the offer due to these doubts.

In retrospect anyway, it was a bit silly of me to post a horary with neptune on decendant- not even Lilly (had he encountered neptune) would have attempted/bothered to read it or had much success if he did.

In fact I really should have not have rushed to post the chart at all (but no chance of that with mars ascending!!). The 2 planets about to change direction should have told me that the situation was about to turn. I knew that the retrogrades would mean that sort of change but, as always seems to happen in these cases, couldn't see what could possibly change the situation. So the least i can do is give feedback how the retrogrades are panning out...

Since I posted two things have happened
1) there was a media announcement this week about house prices in general that made me think that there will be at least a lull in the market and I need not be in such a hurry to spend my cash. Which would be much better from the point of view of my practical situation.

2) I started to investigate other location options- initially one or two on impulse, but it sort of lost focus and escalated- rather a mars/neptune with a touch of jupiter problem (just like the poor USA when they invade a country). Not to mention that it all comfirms the outcome suggested by the VOC moon in Via combusta. I now have a whole pile of properties in 8 different locations... All of the properties have attractions but none is perfect and of course more reason to wait and see what happens to prices. I am in fact now drowning in property choices instead- there is no escape from a horary fate!!

Still i have yet to see if there is any effect when mercury returns to cancer and cojoins my significator and then goes direct. Normally changing signs is a no no but I can't help thinking that if it only just got into leo and then went back that the cancer planets are more important than would otherwise be the case. The USA, in their 2000 elections, was a great example of the impact of retrogrades changing signs like that but by transit not in horary. I have been through all the references to retrograde planets in this horary forum and found no examples of such situations. Perhaps no one has ever investigated it? But I plan to monitor the situation and post the outcome.

Finally one other issue occurred to me but, from my review of the forum, I seem to be alone in this concern. Since money not the property was the main issue, it isn't a key point for this horary but I do wonder about other such questions. I wondered if I should be using the 10th house not the 4th for the property. After all - it is not mineyet; it is the sellers', and 4th would then rule the price. I am also inclined to like venus in gemini as descriptive of the house itself. But I looked at similar queries on the forum about buying properties and they use 4th (as I originally did) or sometimes 7th (which I cannot understand at all). This is the case whether the querent is buying or selling. I consulted my books and see that Lilly would have used 4th due to rules of Dorotheus, which would give 4th in both a purchase case and a sale case. But that would make the querent the 7th if they were the seller.....? Anyone have any rationale for the logic used in purchase/sale situations?

Hi Amelia,

I would use the 4th house for the property you are enquiring about regardless of whether you own it or not. As the querent, you give yourself the ruler of the 1st house and the seller of the property gets the 7th house. The price is the ruler of the 10th house. If you were selling the property, you would still get the 1st house as querent and the buyer would get the 7th house. Lilly suggests the 1st house for the buyer and the 7th for the seller when neither is the querent. The querent is always given the 1st house.The property would still be 4th house.

Sometimes someone will ask a question about whether they should stay living where they are or move. This is where the 7th house can come in when the querent is looking at a property. Lilly gives an example of this kind of question on page 212 of CA. The 4th house ruler is the current abode and the 7th is the property to which the querent wishes to move.

I wouldn't normally pay too much attention to the outer planets but Neptune certainly is demanding attention being placed on the 7th house cusp. And the ruler of the 7th in the 12th house does suggest that the seller may be keeping something from you. Mars (the property) right on the ascendant suggests that you have favourable feelings towards this property. However, Mars is in the detriment of Saturn (the significator of the seller). Given that Jupiter is in the 4th house it deserves attention. There is some strong mutual reception between Mars and Jupiter.

An update as promised.

This example demonstrates the one problem I have with horary. The benefit of horary is that it is simple- you ask yes or no - it tells you, unfortunately that is also its weakness. It is not that a horray chart doesn't tell you all you need to know - it is just that as horary astrologers we tend to look at the simple answer and stick to the obvious circumstances surrounding the question.

Now if we are doing a chart for someone else, they go away with that answer but they may not understand the whole picture and we may not ever realise that they are unhappy with what we know to be the precise horary answer! On our own charts, however, we know if something is not quite right; if the answer doesn't seem to stand up to the situation as we understand it at present.

I didn't get this chart. Oh I got the answer- a definite no- what I didn't get was why. What actually happened, in addition to my nebulous doubts about prices, was that 4 weeks ago I suddenly received a phone call telling me my 90 year old father had been rushed into hospital. Since then that has occupied most of my time and I have not had any opportunity to pursue any househunting interests. So Archergirl was totally right to focus on the jupiter I think- but how on earth are we supposed to come up with something like that which fully explains, rather than just gives, the answer when the client presents? I sort of feel that we should accompany each judgement with a legal type qualification...

Hi Amelia,

Thanks for the follow up. It is always good to see the outcome of these things. I'm not sure we can ever explain everything in a chart to a client. We might be able to give an answer and perhaps even a possible reason for the answer but sometimes it will be a matter of giving them things to think about. Symbolism can be a tricky issue. It usually leaves it to us to unravel its meaning. It sometimes takes a while and we often don't understand it without further triggers. All you can do really is fit the symbolism to the client's story as best as possible.

I hope things aren't too difficult for you with your dad. My mum spends most days looking out for her dad who will be 98 soon.