Earth Day Post

I have been avoiding this post like the plague. Are there any other emails I can check? Classes to create slides for? Inventory charts? Houses! I need to sell houses! Anything to avoid this subject after all the headache it caused me last time.

I was going to make my Earth Day post on home watering systems to tie in with the Permaculture post, but that will have to wait. The California Association of Realtors put out a call to action against a green housing initiative on Earth Day itself.

“C.A.R. is OPPOSING AB 2678 (Núñez) which among other things, requires that ALL homes and commercial property in California have an energy audit at point-of-sale and that mandatory energy efficiency investments be made. While C.A.R. appreciates the goal of AB 2678 C.A.R strongly opposes the point-of-sale requirements in AB2678 because they fail to achieve the bill’s objectives and, such mandates will further weaken the housing market. If enacted, AB 2678 could add thousands of dollars to the cost of purchasing a home, including up to $400 just to have a home audited.”

Again, I disagree with the political position of the PAC in charge of real estate in California. Again, I feel frustrated that there is no point in voicing such an opinion. I have found nothing online about this bill except what C.A.R.has printed against it, so I find it hard to make an informed decision. Even with only hearing the reasons against it, I am hesitant to become an Orwellian sheep in the matter.

Energy audits are what Ecobrokers are encouraged to try to talk their clients into voluntarily. I have yet to run into one that comes close to $400. We all have classes and discussions as real estate agents on how to talk our clients into spending money to make their house more marketable. Many of these upgrades are simply making your home more energy efficient, like double pane windows, etc. Making such assessments and improvements mandatory would not only make our job easier, it would go a long way to making this world a better place.

Spending money at a point-of-sale may sound unfavorable prima facie, but it is much easier to spend money at that time rather than while someone is already established in a building. Changes need to be made, and such changes will ultimately save money for our clients when they pay less monthly for energy bills.

In the end, I am sure that C.A.R. will get what it wants, so I will continue to encourage you to get energy audits and improvements on your own. In the meantime, I am finding it difficult to juxtapose my profession with my conscience.

Green Building IS Worth It.

I came across a fellow blogger at Lime.com that asked if his green building was worth the effort over conventional building if he is only going to be moving away soon anyway. Of course I had to respond:

I would say it is worth it! And most Realtors would agree with the value of building green. Here is some green market data I gleaned while getting my certification from EcoBroker.

1. When you build the studio, have a certified Energy Star inspector come out and rate it. Have them rate your home too, while they are there. More than 2000 builders have constructed over 200,000 Energy Star qualified new homes, locking in financial savings for homeowners that exceed $60 million annually. The nations 10 largest homebuilders are now Energy Star partners, and 23 of the top 25 builders offer Energy Star qualified homes. It is something that gets marketed when you sell your home. Even if your home does not qualify, the rating it is given can enable the buyer of your home to qualify for a larger loan to make it more energy efficient before they move in. Government programs have incentives for such things.
2. Do a quick search for an organization that specializes in green residential buildings in your area. I know Built Green operates near you in Colorado, and Build it Green is my local one in the SF bay area. They might be able to help you with your project, and any certification they offer can be marketed like the Energy Star marketing mentioned above.
3. Analysis indicates home value increases by about $20 for every $1 reduction in annual utility bills ("More Evidence of Rational Market Values for Home Energy Efficiency" from the Appraisal Journal).
4. 94% of 300 American consumers surveyed by the Cahners Residential Group in 2001, cited their most sought-after green upgrade as energy savings, followed by water-saving appliances and recycled building materials. In addition, roughly nine in ten (91%) said energy efficient features in a new home are extremely or very important.
5. In a 2002 nationwide study of more than 400 home buyers conducted by American LIVES, more than half the respondents said they are willing to pay more for formaldehyde-free insulation, environmentally friendly paints, solvent-free andhesives, and other materials that do not release chemicals into the air.
6. In 2003, with the help of energy efficient technologies, Americans saved over $8 billion on their energy bills while preventing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the emissions from 18 million vehicles. These benefits have helped develop a national market for energy efficient products, with more than one billion Energy Star products sold and billions of square feet of building space improved.
7. The most important environmental issues for consumers are: saving energy, using recycled content building products, improving air quality, and saving old-growth threes.

When you sell your home, my advice would be to market your home's green qualities. Certainly your studio built with green in mind from the ground up is very marketable! There are people willing to pay a premium, and even move from farther away in an effort to find a green home. Make sure your agent markets your home in:

Dwell Green
EcoBroker
Green Real Estate
Green Homes For Sale
Listed Green
and Sustainable Sources

Never price your home higher for any upgrade. Price your home competitively with your neighbors. The lower you price your home, the more people will see it, and bid the price up. This is especially true if they are competing for a green building. You can always reject an offer if no one competes like you expected, and raise the price. However, starting too high and lowering the price as you follow the market down is much more difficult to fix, and makes your home a dud weather you built with straw bale or baby seal fur!

Have fun with your renovation, and rest assured: It is definitely worth it to build it green.

Certification Day! Hurray!

I truly had a blast taking the classes for this certification. The information was new, useful, and challenging. The assignments were so helpful I found myself able to start to apply some ideas right away. I am really happy with the way the material was presented as well. It was obviously kept up to date.

Well, I guess that takes care of the first of my goals. On to the second one now!

Goals

Why I Am Setting These Goals

As of this posting, I am brand spanking new! The Department of Real Estate web page has me listed as licensed, so I assume they have finished my paperwork, but I have not yet received my license in the mail. When I do, I intend to join the National Association of Realtors even though the PAC grates against my sense of social responsibility. My idea is to work with the established real estate system instead of against it in my attempts to create social change.

Besides, my focus is not big industry or PACs or government. My focus for change is a much larger group that is much less organized; people like me. People who:

• Recognise the scientific evidence that the world cannot sustain the status quo.


• Would like to help without living in a hut, eating twigs.


• Prefer to make green changes when it saves them money.


• Prefer to make green changes when it is convenient.


• Prefer to make green changes when it would mean raising their standard of living, not lowering it.

I have amassed quite a library on sustainable living, and I know my way around the online communities for the subject. I love to spend my spare time just thinking, reading and experimenting with these ideas. I could certainly simply share my findings here, but I would rather direct you to other blogs and websites that already do this. I would prefer to offer people in the south bay a service. I want to be the go-to girl for getting green ideas implimented in your home. I do not indend to charge for this service. I know real estate books focus on get rich quick schemes, and that just turns me off. I find more satisfaction in volunteerism. I only ask that you consider the "G" Team if you ever need to buy or sell your home.

What My Goals Are

With this in mind, I have some goals to set on how I can go about integrating my knowledge into services for the south bay area.

• Become EcoBroker Certified. This will keep me up to date on green home certification programs such as Energy Star Qualified Homes. This will also assist me in working through issues that may arrise in real estate transactions such as mold, radon, and indoor air quality so that I can provide real solutions that center around energy efficency and sustainable design.


• Attend local green group meetings and classes. This will keep me abreast of how local laws and regulations effect our local and global communities. This will also enable me to network with other green professionals to call on when their specific area of expertise would be useful in your home. As new products and techniques become available, this is where I will hear about them first.

• Learn paperless transaction techniques. My most memorable childhood recollection of my mother's real estate business was the mountains of paperwork she carried and stored. This has lessened considerably since the advent of the internet, but I have heard of transactions going totally paperless. I would like to look into this more.

• Organize and grow my collections of books, articles, and magazines. I know where it all is and how to access it when I need it, but an organized bookshelf at the office would enable people visiting to browse, borrow, and refer to them just as easily as I do. My online sources should also be organized and available on the website or here in this blog.

The next step is to articulate how these goals will be implemented into services to offer my community. I have some ideas brewing, but they will be saved for future blog posts. ;-)