What can you do about it? Get involved. Take action. 

Be at the Hogan Center on the Holy Cross campus starting at 5:30 on Thursday, February 9 to participate in our second Housing & Climate Forum. 

We have been forced to invest in building more efficient, “high performing” homes. These homes cost less per month for utilities; therefore, they are more valuable. The built-in benefits are there now and will still be there in the future.

Attend this meeting to learn how to communicate the value benefit to home-owners and buyers. Learn how they can take advantage of better mortgages for energy efficient homes and appraisals that accurately reflect the energy efficiency of the home. With everyone working together, we ensure a positive effect on the home value for the benefit of owners/buyers and increased sale prices to off-set increased cost with these new requirements.

The key to making this work? Builders must take advantage of the marketing, financing, and appraisal benefits that are already well established by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Appraisal Institute, and the National Association of Realtors®. All we need to do is learn to utilize programs that have already been developed. There are steps we can take to make this happen. 

Agenda

• 5:30 Arrive, have a beverage, get comfortable
• 6:00 Buffet Dinner 
• 7:00 Presentation - see list of presenters below
• 8:15 Close

Registration Fees
$45.00 members
$60.00 non-members

Our Presenters:  

Dan Woznicki, Sales Manager at loanDepot, will outline the financing benefits that can be realized and what he needs to have to justify those benefits. Based on the actual requirements of the different energy efficiency mortgages they will need different information packages. There were different financing options for new homes versus efficiency upgrades to existing homes. Some packages required different upgrade levels and/or installation to be completed before they could get the loan. 

Maria Hopkins, independent Real Estate Broker and Appraiser, will outline how the energy efficient appraisal works. Builders need to understand that the energy efficiency of a home can only be taken into consideration by an appraiser with supporting documentation and real data & statistics. Currently, the data in MLS is virtually non-existent because real estate agents are not utilizing the fields that already exist (a handout showing all these fields will be presented at the meeting). The reason they are not using these fields is because they are not educated on green energy benefits and they are not being provided info from builders and homeowners. The basics of how the values are derived and calculated will be discussed.

Russell Cole, owner of Home Energy Remedies will wrap it up by stressing the need for builders to take advantage of this benefit by insisting that listing Realtor® be trained to handle the Green Building Addendum and have training in marketing the benefits of highly efficient homes. The listing agent cannot control the Green Education level of the buyer or buyer agent who may show the property. It is suggested that written materials be left at the property and attached to MLS listings to ensure that agents and buyers understand the materials used and the definitions of the green energy terms.