Is Calling a House “Green” Like Calling Food “Nutirtious?”
Does the “Green” Label Help Sell Homes?
The Ideal Home: Living off the Grid!
Everyone knows that owing a home designed with “green” or environmentally efficient/friendly features is a wonderful idea. Most home owners I know (including me) would love to add eco-friendly features to their homes: solar panels, on-demand water heaters, geo-thermal heaters or a wind turbine. We all know that building our homes with “green” products is the right thing to do: recycled materials, high-value insulation, modern windows, etc…..This stuff all sounds great; however, the truth is: the “green” housing market is struggling.
In a number of blog posts, I’ve highlighted some of these technologies: “Embracing Alternative Energy – The Zero Energy Idea House” and “Solar Energy – The Perfect Remodeling Project of the Future”. In the course of researching and writing about this subject, I’ve had to confront some facts:
- Most home owners don’t see the economic pay-off of converting, let’s say, a water heater to a solar system knowing that they may not realize a return on the investment.
- Builders will not sacrifice profit margins by using the green products
- Most jurisdictions haven’t caught up with these technologies. They don’t have ways to evaluate and approve wind turbines, solar systems, etc.. Permitting is often a problem
- Green buyers and sellers struggle to find each other
- As pointed out in the audio clip below, home buyers place a higher value on location, price and traditional amenities than on environmentally friendly additions
Listen to This Excellent Audio Presentation:
This morning National Public Radio broadcast an excellent article entitled, “In Tight Market, Real Estate Agents Tout Eco Features.” I highly recommend you spend five-minutes and listen to this thoughtful discussion of the challenges facing the “green” movement in Real Estate.
Click on this picture and listen to the article!
For those of you interested in finding out more about some of the issues raised in this article, here are two more interesting websites:
Evaluating Green Products
Click on the picture to visit this website!
The Green Multiple Listing Service – Linking Buyers and Sellers
Click on this picture to visit Listed Green Homes
I personally believe we Americans are a long way from embracing and incorporating eco-friendly, green products into our homes. Today, in the Seattle region there are slightly over 200 homes utilizing solar systems. Also, most home owners are finding it hard to finance any sort of upgrades to their homes. The best we can hope for in the immediate future is to weatherize our homes in traditional ways (caulking, insulating, using good windows, etc.). It’s better than nothing.
