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A Little HOPE in Houston while Going Green

This past week the Houston Association Realtors announced its initiative to help Houston's HOPE program by listing those homes for sale on the MLS. I know many Realtors have been involved with this program, but it is nice to see this renewed commitment by the real estate community in helping to improve our neighborhoods.

HOPE focuses on rebuilding neglected neighborhoods while helping families into homes. The program is open to first time and low income home buyers, and there are additional incentives for teachers, fire fighters, and police officers. When you couple the money you could receive through HOPE and the tax credit for home buyers, this turns out to be an extraordinarily fantastic deal. One of my favorite aspects of the program is that it teams up with builders to produce green homes for these families. These are not homes where the builder slaps on the green label to make them attractive to buyers; the homes meet Houston's Green Building Initiative, which follows the guide lines established for building a green home as laid out in the ANSI 700 and the International Residential code.

If you wish to read my thoughts on the program in further detail, you can see what I have written about Houston's Hope program, which will provide you with more information about taking advantage of it.

I have been writing a bit about converting an existing home to include green features. I have seen where my posts on this topic inspired others to take my ideas to discuss on their own. I think that this is great. If you are not buying a home, you should consider how you can add green features; hopefully this past Earth Day may have inspired you. Yesterday, I posted an article that looks at the solar lights that can be used to brighten spots around your home at night. This post has already been read by quite a few people, so you may want to check it out. If you are interested in finding some of those lights, CSN Lighting has a good selection, with great customer service from my experience. Soon I will be buying the solar light that can be turned on and off for my garage. (I was working on taking some solar light panels apart to see if I could make my own, then I found one there, which will serve my needs in the garage and shed).

Have a little HOPE in Houston, and go green in your home.

Posted by Frank Schulte-Ladbeck on 04/24/2009 09:26 AM

Comments (8)

houstons hope program, solar panel lighting

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8 Comments on A Little HOPE in Houston while Going Green

APR

Hi Frank - long time no see. I'm glad you haven't totally abandoned AR. Are you on Twitter yet? I hope your business is going well and the family is well too. I bet you have your hands full with the new baby.

@mauihunter

APR

Hi Georgina- I will start to follow you on Twitter. Amy Le, who used to work for Homefinder, convinced me that I should join (she now works for GrubHub). My account is @frankschultelad. I will begin following you today.

The girls have been keeping me busy. They love being outdoors with me in the garden. My son wants to be my "internet marketing manager", so he is insisting that I join Facebook. Business is doing about what it did last year, but I am finding ways to improve it. I have been spending time improving my HTML and CSS skills, and I am currently learning PHP. I managed to create my first Wordpress Theme. I am starting a blog about geotargeting websites for local businesses. We will see if something comes of it.

I hope that you are doing well. How is the garden? Mine is coming back to life. My daughter stil picks all of the flowers, and she has decided that she likes green tomatoes and that the dog likes the onions. All my best to you, and I will start posting here again.

Hi Frank - my "notify me of new comments" feature isn't working, but I cam back thinking you would leave a message. It sounds like the kids are keeping busy and learning good skills from you. Our garden survived the winter and we were able to eat something from it every day. I planted a new spring garden and since then we have had a lot of rain, and not enough sunshine. In fact in the past 2-3 days we had 11.5 inches! It goes away fast, but I think I'll need to add a lot of supplements again. We are enjoying plenty of beets, green beans and kabocha squash lateley, and a few cucumbers. The dogs have no respect for the small onions which I always plant along the border, and try to bury things there, and walk all over them! They are slowly learning to stay out of the garden, or stay on the paths at least.

If you enjoy twitter, you can "meet" people who might need your services one day. Join in the conversation. post some links, add pictures to twitpic.com and that's all it takes. I think?!

I'll see you around the net. Have a productive weekend.

That is wonderful to hear about the garden. I have many of those growing. My swiss chard has taken off. Thanks for the follow on Twitter. I have received work already from being on that site.

JUN

It is always good to see people that are trying to make a buck. Help other people in need and revitalize a community. Most people just take and dont give.

lighting

SEP

Howdy there Frank

How are you doing, my friend?

From reading your replys up above, you've been mighty busy with your family, learn-en, and developing new areas on the net for folks to find you. Theres alot of new things going on here in the ActiveRain community.

You should redo or post a new photo of yourself, using the HD 600X600 formatt. We have ActiveRain Ambassador's in the community. The Ambassador's help new and the older members, with any thing they may need or want help with. I'll be posting my first video in a blog post today. Though it was about time I added one in a blog post.

Been writing a lot of blog post series, about different Home Components, that the Inspectors in the community have not written about, and about my area.

Now that I know your on Twitter, I'll follow you. And let our friend Carl know also. Do hope you will have a bit more time to write blog posts, here at AR for all of us to read, and learn from you as in the pass, my friend.

Baker Home Inspection and Consulting AR Signature

Dale, I promise I will work on something. I noticed that Ceil was on Facebook, so I thought Carl would be too. I have to caheck that. I have been busy of late(two home inspections taodasy, tow tomorrow, with a possible third. Then more next week. Last September was not so busy.

I hope that everything has been well with you. I will follow you on twitter. I am glad that we can catch up with each others lives.

Howdy there Frank

Ceil sure is over on Facebook, I'm think that Carl is also there. Carl is also on Twitter, but does not really use it much. I'm setup on Facebook, but have not really done anything with it. Last night I started setten up a spot on MySpace. Just in case I should need to use it. AR takes up alot of my time on the Net. Seen that I'm one of the Ambassadors of the community.

I'm glad to hear business has been picking up for you. I remember it was not very busy in the Houston area at this time last year.

I took over the number one spot, on the main New Hampshire page a few months ago.

I'm also glod we can catch up on what we've been up to. Thats one of the nice things about communitys like ActiveRain. By the way, I Re-Bloged this post of yours. Did it with the hopes, that even more members of the community, will come by to visit your blog with such fine posts to read, learn and comment on.

P.S. I'm sure the comment left up above by Ryan, that he's one of the spamers that has made their way into the AR community. I click on the link at the end of the comment. It takes you to a lighting website.

Baker Home Inspection and Consulting AR Signature

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