Why is the residential sector slow to embrace GREEN?

In a sales meeting today, at Keller Williams Mid Maine, we were told of a move that our nearest KW Market Center had had just made. The move was monumental, in that the new facility was one of the first of it's kind in Maine, to occur to a true "green" building. Not only were the building materials considered in the construction to be green, but all aspects of daily operations including lighting and the weighing of all recyclable paper going out are considered as well.

Camilla McLaughlin's article below, shows three categories of buyers. They are the Healthy Greens, The Forest Greens and the Greenback Greens. I believe the later is the real reason why the residential real estate sector in Maine is slow to embrace this trend. The Greenback Green reflects the median income buyer whose decision is solely on the purchase price. What about curb appeal?

Read both stories below.

- By Camilla McLaughlin for REALTOR® Magazine Online

Daily Real Estate News | May 15, 2007Residential Sector Slow to Embrace Green
The green movement may have a strong foothold in commercial real estate. "But an overall lack of consumer demand for green housing has kept the movement from gaining the same amount of traction in the residential sector," say participants at Urban Land Institute's recent Developing Green conference held in Pittsburgh.

Participants cited a recent home-buyer preference survey conducted by RCLCO, a real estate advisory and strategic planning firm in Bethesda, Md., which found that only 10 percent of buyers based their purchasing decisions on energy savings, and just 3 percent based their decision on the use of green materials in construction.

In his presentation at the conference, Shyam Kannan, director of research and development at RCLCO, predicted that consumer interest in residential green will rise as "more home-buyers make the connection between health and wellness and green homes."

What Kind of 'Green' Are You?

In the future, demand for green residential construction will be driven primarily by a group of buyers that Kannan calls Healthy Greens. They're "highly educated, more affluent cultural creatives, who equate energy conservation with healthy living," he says.

Other categories of buyers, according to Kannan, are Forest Greens, who have little purchasing power but buy for altruistic reasons, and Greenback Greens, who are interested in eco-friendly housing, but base purchasing decisions on cost.

Echoing the Commercial Sector

Overall factors that will push the green trend forward in the residential sector are similar to what's driving green construction in commercial buildings. Among the top reasons for embracing sustainable designs:

• Growing concern in society about global climate change
• Rising energy prices
• Growing public demand for products and services that promote health and wellness
• Mounting proof that green buildings don't cost significantly more to build, and in fact, generates energy savings that
• quickly offset upfront costs

Read on....

Solar Companies Aim for Curb Appeal

Daily Real Estate News | May 14, 2007Solar Companies Aim for Curb Appeal
Solar companies PowerLight, BP Solar, and Dow Chemical are working to make solar installations more attractive in the hopes that more builders and buyers will embrace them. They want to make their power generating solar panels more invisible on exterior walls, rooftops, and window treatments of buildings.

"There are certain customers who ... won't buy [solar] because of aesthetics," says Geoffrey Slevin, director of marketing for BP Solar. BPSolar just launched EnergyTime, a roofing tile embedded with solar technology and designed to mimic and replace concrete roof tiles that are seen on many California homes.

PowerLight Corp., a subsidiary of solar manufacturer SunPower, sells SunTiles. These tiles can be laid out in one area on a roof and slide into place next to the regular roof tiles they are designed to imitate.

The Dow Chemical Co. wants to expand the market beyond tile roofs. The company is working with its building solutions unit to integrate solar technology into other roofing materials and exterior building supplies such as siding. It expects to have a line of products available for sale within five years.

Solar power generated in the U.S. amounts to roughly one-thirtieth of 1 percent of all the electricity produced in the U.S.

Source: Dow Jones & Co., Stephanie I. Cohen (05/14/07)

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