Mr. President:

When you were campaigning for green jobs, cleaner air, more energy efficiency in our cars, homes and industrial and commercial buildings - we rallied behind you.  We welcomed an ideal of rebuilding our economy by once again manufacturing stuff, whether cars, homes or new technologies.  We welcomed, too, your promise of tighter oversight of our financial institutions upon whose good graces would depend our ability to purchase those new cars, homes or to help a fledgling business devoted to new green technologies.  We were hoping that no bit of political or legislative nonsense would ever again prevent those who are worthy from being able to enjoy the American dream of Home Ownership, and that the consumer opting to live in a green home would have no more trouble obtaining a loan than a person choosing to buy a Smart Car over one buying a Hummer.

We thought that in order for this country to recover economically, the housing market needed a boost and agreed with your vision to make it happen.

So the bailed out banks got an influx of cash to lend to achieve that very goal of recovery.  Then the HVCC was introduced into the mix.  If you've been too busy to pay attention to the consequences of this rather benign-sounding bit of consumer protectiveness, the Home Valuation Code of Conduct, here is a brief from a consumer's point of view.

Michelle B. lives in Flagler County, Florida, an area considered a distressed market.  She is an environmentalist.  She wants to live in a Green home, just the right size for her and her husband, with no wasted space.  She wants to have full house solar and not depend on burning fossil fuels.  She wants to plant her own little organic garden in her yard.  An ideal home for her would be 800 or so square feet of smart living space, a 1-bedroom country house.  She finds a local builder who builds certified green homes, and they embark on drawing plans for her new dream home, just the way she envisions it, only to learn that the only properties that appraise in the area have to be 3-bedroom, 2-bath homes, and that there is no appraiser working for the Appraisal Management Company the bank uses who would be willing to spend the extra 10 minutes to acknowledge any energy-efficient features as adding value to the home. 

The irony of it is, Michelle B. currently occupies a 2,400 square foot home that is simply too big for her needs, and consumes too much in a way of resources.  She wants to do the right thing for all the right reasons.  She wants to build the kind of home you campaigned about.  The kind of home that Energy Efficient Mortgages were designed to help finance.  But they won't, because the people the entire transaction depends on, value these properties from behind a computer with nary a drive by inspection to speak of - after all they are only getting half the money they are accustomed to, so they could be effectively managed, and so the bank couldn't influence the outcome of the all-important appraisal.

So with all things being equal, as much as one might like to build a new home, especially if it's green and on a smaller footprint, the frustration associated with trying to finance the purchase may not be worth it.  In fact, it appears that if anyone wants to buy in an area dominated by short sales, purchasing anything other than a short sale will not work out - the home will simply not appraise. 

It used to be that the market value hinged on how much a buyer was willing to pay for something.  Now, it is dictated by an underpaid appraiser's opinion of value.  If the housing market is to recover, does it really make sense for us to keep devaluing dwellings in places where things are tough enough already?  To trample on the idea of the American dream of home ownership under the auspices of protecting the very consumer whose dreams we can no longer fulfill? 

Logic tells me that no code of conduct alone can make one act ethically.  Experience tells me that for as long as we are corruptible, there will be those who are capable of violating these codes of conduct, so, at the end of the day, the consumer is no more protected by the additional red tape than they were before, but the dream of home ownership for so many across the country has just become a nightmare. 

Hit the blogs, Mr. President - this is happening everywhere, and home buyers, those rare creatures willing to purchase a home, capable of purchasing a home, are the ones that are being pushed away by the very thing design to protect them.  There has to be a better way to protect our money without destroying our dreams, Mr. President.  This needs to be fixed, for the sake of thousands of people like Michelle across the country, for the sake of realtors and loan officers whose livelihoods depend on it, for the sake of all of us being able to build something again.

Disclosure: This blog was written with first hand knowledge of the difficulties financing a unique property built by my client, Florida Green Homes, LLC - a builder of certified green homes in North East Florida.  www.myfloridagreenhome.com