How Green is Your Realtor?

The upside in looking for a new home during these uncertain economic times is that it’s easier to get expert help to find a home that is green and healthy. Now there’s over 4,000 Realtors who've become Ecobrokers. Their environmental curriculum covers everything from energy efficiency to solar energy, indoor air quality and green financing. An Ecobroker can help you assess the green features of a home and recommend changes if you are selling or buying.

Some firms have an impressive team of green experts. A shining example is the Green Key Real Estate (the first and only green real estate company in San Francisco), led by Chris Bartle. He’s also on the board of Build It Green, a member of the California Association of Realtors Green Task Force and a Certified Green Building Professional.” Ecobroker, Carson Matthews writes that “A tight well built house gives you the foundation to add all of these other (green) ingredients.” Just be sure that your well-sealed home doesn’t keep more air pollutants inside. You want your home to be green and healthy.

Affluent People Seek Green Home Features

Want Your Next Home to Be Green?

Green homes are selling faster and commanding higher prices than other properties in many markets. For example, Alyson McNutt English reports that “Solaire, a green residential high-rise in New York, commands rents 10 percent to 15 percent higher than market rates. In Rocklin, California LEED-certified homes in the Carsten Crossings development outsold the competition 2 to 1.” That reflects a trend that's grown since 2006.

Turn to an EcoBroker who is trained to assess the green features of a prospective home.

There are many benefits. From helping you qualify for grants and tax credits for energy-saving improvements to ensuring that your home will have healthy air inside, an EcoBroker’s training may help you. That Realtor has chosen to take courses about what makes a building “green”, healthy and more attractive to energy-saving or otherwise eco-minded buyers. Hugh Morris, the community outreach representative for the National Association of Realtors says interest in "green" properties has surged.

There are now 4,000 certified EcoBrokers.

Here’s ways they can be helpful:

• Some EcoBrokers will connect interested buyers to homes with eco-friendly features, like an electronic air cleaners (EAC), solar power and energy-efficient appliances. Even if the property does not have green features, EcoBrokers can, for example, show seller or buyers example retro-fits to lower their energy bills.

• Celeste Karan hosts a web site that not only lists homes for sale but provides, help for “home buyers understand what truly constitutes a 'green building.' "

• Ecobrokers Karen Sutherland and Jennifer Spivey use their sites to provide “green” news and tips to homeowners. Spivey, for example, reported that “October 2-5 Georgia residents can purchase energy and water efficient products state and local tax free. This is the first year water efficient products have been included in the tax holiday.”

• If the home you want to sell has many green features, an EcoBroker may be more adept at selling it to the growing niche market of green buyers. That’s what EcoBroker Carson Matthews has found. He uses his blog to help make the connections. Plus he and his colleague, Cotten Alston, “successfully lobbied the First Multiple Listing Service (FMLS) to include green features in their search engine.”

• When looking at a home for sale, Baltimore's first EcoBroker Amanda Lee Lopez “checks the indoor air quality, the cost of utilities and how the owners, both current and new, can make green improvements.”

• Among other things EcoBroker Larry Weiss can help you with indoor air quality, ventilation, use of low VOC paints, quality radon testing, and reliable water testing.

• Gary Greene offers a free Property and Environmental Profile on any domestic property in his Houston market.

• Maui’s first female EcoBroker, Meghan Clair writes that “It pays to think Green when investing in Real Estate.”

• A sign this healthy green home trend is growing in popularity: the U.S. Green Building Council -- a nonprofit that rates commercial buildings on things like energy use and indoor-air quality -- introduced similar rating systems for people's homes.

• For more ideas about how to make your home more energy and resource-efficient (an a healthy place in which to live) visit a partner of EcoBroker, Build It Green.

Get a Green Broker When You Buy or Sell Your Home

That choice is not only smart for the planet and for your health, it means that the property may be more valuable to the buyer or the seller. Why? Because a broker who is steeped in what makes a home green (energy-efficient, air cleaning system, solar, etc.), can help other eco-minded buyers or sellers to size up a property, make green improvements and more.

For example, Meghan Clair is the kind of caring trailblazer I would pick as my Realtor if I were buying or selling my home in Hawaii (rather than in Sausalito, where I live). Also I love living in this hilly village by the bay.

Back to Clair. She cares deeply about the environment and supporting people in finding a healthy green home in which to live. That's why she studied to become the first certified Ecobroker in Maui. Now that's a concrete way to support the Aloha spirit and way of life.

As Clair points out, "Green real estate refers to a property designed or built to reduce environmental impacts; create a safer, more efficient living or working environment; reduce operating cost; and improve occupant health." Even the wealthy are going green at home - not just to save the world but to preserve their health.

What’s the Top Reason to Build Green?

According to certified green builders TMG Homes it is to “improve the air quality in your home."

Here’s their elaboration: “The quality of a home’s indoor air is the most important feature of green homes. Green homes limit the use of chemicals that can off-gas from building materials that can affect allergies and respiratory ailments. Steps are taken to control and filter air contaminants during and after construction. All green homes contain passive radon mitigation systems.”

For some people, good air quality at home isn’t “just” a nice green feature; it is vital: Infants, young children, those with asthma, allergies or other respiratory conditions, work-at-home folks, the elder because of their much-reduced lung capacity, smokers and those who live with them, people in urban areas and (winter is coming!) those who are indoors even more because they live in colder climates.

In a study by AirAdvice of more than 10,000 North American homes and businesses, almost 96% had health-affecting indoor air quality problems in at least one of six areas: particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), humidity, temperature, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide.

For the most continuously high-efficiency (performance does not go down after 45 days as happens in most conventional air cleaners), whole home air cleaner get the best-in-category of electronic air cleaner (EAs). It is made by AspenAir Inside. Any size home can use this new technology. It can be bolted right onto any HVAC system in 40 minutes or less. It gets rid of the most dangerous and difficult-to-remove tiny particles - the RSPs and the VOCs.

It is energy-saving, quiet, requires less than 10 minutes of maintenance a year (1-2 filter changes) - and unlike many conventional air cleaners it does not emit harmful ozone. It makes the air cleaner than fresh air. (Yes, I am a fan.)

Here TMG Homes’ next nine reasons to build “green.” Note that TMG Homes smartly partners with Ecobrokers.