A few years back buyers from many walks of life started looking for new features in a home. ENERGY STAR did a lengthy survey of consumers nationwide and found that 92% of them look for “green” in a home. It doesn’t mean that’s all they want. But they added that to the wish list they bring a builder or a Realtor, along with the views, the deck, and the garage for all their sports gear.
Some people want a home to be efficient and have low heating bills. Some people want their home to have less cost of replacing parts over the years- like the windows and siding. Some want their air inside to be clean just like our air outside is. So that’s how the building industry came up with dozens of ways of categorizing and rating both energy efficiency, and even further, a green-built home or neighborhood. People started asking for “green” to be added to the mix.
The market responded! In La Plata County there are over 250 homes that have been built to third-party certified green-built standards, like ENERGY STAR, Built Green Colorado, or LEED. On top of that, dozens if not hundreds more have at least an aspect, or feature, of their home dealing with sustainability including everything from solar electric to energy efficient windows. This created a problem. The MLS is a way we Realtors, appraisers, and others in the real estate industry communicate. It is how we search for homes for sale, how we decide how much they are worth, and how buyers are able to get mortgages. There is a category for everything from address to searchable fields for location to whether it is waterfront, but unless you know all the places to find a green built home and what it includes, you couldn’t search for one. How do you search for a healthy home?
Appraisers had a home that was LEED certified and they didn’t know where to look to find another to compare it to. So if they appraised a green-built home they would compare it to another home built to La Plata County code. This wasn’t a local problem only. Nationally at the end of 2010 less than 5% of MLS’s had a way to categorize green-built homes. This had to change, and it did very rapidly.
Locally, we worked on the Climate and Energy Action Plan in our county with a dedicated group of volunteers from across all parts of our community which 4CORE helped facilitate. With the signing of the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, La Plata County, the City of Durango, and the Town of Ignacio resolved to develop a local climate and energy action plan with specific policies and programs to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.We created a plan for over 100 measures of bringing sustainable practices to our county. In the Residential, Industrial, and Commercial group, which I worked with, these measures range from new construction codes, standardizing energy mortgages, and educating Realtors, homeowners and builders. Greening the MLS stood out as something that needed changing.
In La Plata County, our MLS is shared with six Realtor Boards from Montrose all the way to the San Luis Valley, and it’s owned by a corporation in which Realtors from each member Board govern. Attempts had been made to add green features to the MLS, but these boards didn’t all see the reasoning to spend the money to reprogram the system since some areas have lots of green building, and others in very rural areas have little if any and they all had to share the cost.
In 2010 a grant through the Governor's Energy Office (GEO) became available because Colorado also found that greening the MLS’s was a key missing in the future of more sustainable building. They gave grants of a few thousand dollars to MLS’s to reprogram their system and add these new items. People talk about how much money it takes to make serious changes in the world of business, but this few thousand dollars gave our part of the state enough of a reason to make serious and comprehensive changes in our MLS.
The next steps include educating the industry and showing that green built homes have value. Seattle was one of the first cities that added green-built home categories to the MLS. In the first year of tracking it they found third-party certified green-built homes sold for a 10.5% premium, and stayed on the market 24% less time. Being able to prove a cost value to the benefits of living in a green-built home convinces a lender to write a mortgage for it, and shows a builder a reason to spend the extra time, money and especially the expertise they require to build homes this way. The GEO, our MLS, and 4CORE is now building a database to see if green built homes here sell in less days on the market, or a higher price, or both!
Imagine how these numbers are convincing builders to build green, and convincing buyers that a green investment makes investment good sense all around. Someday, maybe very soon, we'll be able to show green built homes have more durability, health benefits, are better for the environment and community, save money on utility bills, and command a higher price on the market.
Because that’s how it should be, right?
About the Author
Heather Erb has been a Realtor for 10 years with Coldwell Banker, she’s the Past President of the Durango Area Association of Realtors (DAAR), and the 2011 DAAR Realtor of the Year. She is the Past President of the Colorado Real Estate Network (CREN)–an MLS corporation providing 1,500 people through the western slope with MLS service, and currently the Vice President of La Plata Electric Association.
She speaks regionally about green building and the market, and was the Vice Chair of the steering committee of La Plata County’s Climate and Energy Action Plan, CEAP. Heather was instrumental in a Green Feature Initiative- creating green fields for the MLS in southwest Colorado. She can be found on her blog.
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