Hi Teri, You are so right. The up front costs as they clearly demonstrate are actually like a forced investment and savings at the same time. I say forced because the upfront costs are higher for many aspects of building green but as it is utilized the costs are less and over a reasonable period of time, the capital costs are recovered and the savings and the spared resources continue to provide benefits. There are also quite a number of incentives from taxes and credits on use costs that eventually will be better known and become more common place among consumers. In some cases that are outright cash credits for those that will embrace "building it green". Discovering all these take a good bit of research but as they be more known, organizations like BuildItGreem.org provide this information to the public. There will be more and more as the we look for alternative energy resources and agree on the need for re-tooling the education standards for schools, universities and even the way thinking is changing at local,county and state governments with the environment in mind. 

Hi Gary, You seem to be well informed on this. I think this subject will become more and more a part of a REALTORS overall training because we have direct contact with consumers in an informational way. There are few other professionals with the direct contact that we have with the numbers of people we are in contact on a daily basis.

I think the effort will extend quickly beyond just new construction and over a period of time will become a greater part of everyones lives. And I think that REALTORS will lead the way on this as we often do on other issues affecting the home and the communities they reside in. 

As always I really appreciate you dropping over and sharing your insight Gary.

Hi William, It goes without saying that while there is great promotion to Go Green, it must also be remembered that there is a lot of new money and resources available in this and when ever there is this kind money flowing in to something, there is little desire to undersell or perhaps as you say, provide the remedial sanity. It is push forward, stay on message and the money will flow.

Hi William, This next 4 to 8 years will likely show even more of what you are saying from the likely laws that will be forthcoming. Like so many things once people have their senses dulled they give up and it just becomes common. We have seen this over and over in our recent history and there is no evidence that there will less effort made to make so much of this commonplace in our new world ( whatever it will be called).

Hi Linda, that is all true and like William said it will separate the haves from the have not's at least initially. What would be worse is the mandates that may be coming as we clearly show that the petroleum is a very high stakes game and we are already trying to fight that battle with one hand and one foot tied up. It will not be , I fear an equal playing field and the ones that designing this game , have that clearly in mind.

Hi Lynda, I think it is brand new and the first time it have been offered. But it will be come common place. You can just hear the community leaders when they have project out for bid. The costs will extraordinary and they will advertise this as not the New way but the only way. While it may prove to be self liquidating debt because of savings, it has yet to be proven. Several schools that went with solar actually saw bills that were double. However, there was an explanation for defending this, I just can't remember what it was. My mind usually can only wrap around the logical so I am at a serious disadvantage.

Hi Kevin, Thanks for commenting. In pure dollars and ( sense ), we can expect these items to increase ,irrespective of going green. What would be different is how this is ultimately imposed be it by legislative action or free choice. Free choice provides a working toward and legislative will mandate it and that would be quite costly. We will have to see how it shakes out over a period of time. But for sure the real costs will get more and more expensive either way.

Hi Susie, that is a good point and it may end up being a combination of both of those statements.

Hi Richard, State laws. To my knowledge there are no federal mandates  for building green as yet but that may certainly follow in the next administration. Usually though, it is state and municipality that deal with these issues. because of the oil crisis, it would be unthinkable that there could federal mandates affecting this and they mostly be in the form of grants that force ( genty persuade) the hands of the states to implement them. Interesting to watch how that works.

Hi Cynthia, I think that is mostly true everywhere and they are ways of convincing people, like mandating it local and state building codes. Not always giving free choice in other words. In california, we have bill after bill of retrofits at point of sale and they are the onerous ones. Point of sale is unequally applied to those selling their home. All REALTORS associates fight these as they infringe on the private property rights but our clout may wane as new business models become the norm and the organized part of real estate begins to lessen. I expect we will see this manifested in the not to distant future.

Hello Jack, thank you for sharing your perspective about building green, I had just written a post that have to edit covering essentially the same type of information. It is useful for people to understand that there are many ways beyond just the obvious one and that choosing the right systems all add greatly to the less consumption of energy. It is an education process and i expect more and more will be written on this and the consumers will begin to look for ways to implement some of the ideas. (90 % of the homes that will be standing in the next 25 years are already built. We need to focus as much on the remodel and enhancing properties already built. It is takes some serious re-thinking about what we currently have. If you look at the ways homes were built at the turn of the century, they were constructed in ways that might be considered fortress like as compared to the way homes are constructed today. They used more natural products that were deemed at that time as plentiful.

Today with the synthetic and chemically manufactured goods, our homes are nearly as easily classified as tighter exterior envelopes that prevent excess moisture, pollutants etc from entering the home. They are also not ventilated as well as needed to let allow the moisture and pollutants to escape from the home.

We have a long way to go in this and some it makes a great deal sense just for health reasons. other aspects are questionable as to their longer term cost benefits but we await better understanding on this. Time and information is essential for this to become more common place in out lives.

Hi Gena, It seems to take a lot of time to convince people. I wrote a post today this is isn't up explaining the many things consumers need to understand about Green. Maybe that will help move this subject along better.

Hi John, Thanks for the tip. I went to the site and I will look into the certification as a possibility

I am certain of this Jeff. But I will add that there some really valid points brought this week in an article by Forbes of some good intent that actually can hurt the environment. I thought I about doing a post on it because I hadn't actually thought about that aspect. But we will all be hearing more about this and I was even informed about a REALTORS Green designation that has surfaced. It will interesting to watch this whole Green experience grow.