It's a tough time to sell a house. But what if you really need to sell your home... right now?
What if you can't afford to wait until the market improves?
The good news is you can have the advantage among other Sellers simply by making Smart and Quick Eco-Renovations. Here are some green remodeling ideas that can help you slash your monthly energy bills, reduce your water usage, clean up your indoor air quality, and leave the planet a better place. And especially make your home stand out from the competition. Here are ways to make your house stand out from the rest by going green.
Wow Your Buyers with Energy Efficiency Home utility bills have seen double-digit growth in the past few years, spurred by record high oil and gas prices and water shortages. "That means if you can show lowered utility bills to potential buyers, it makes a big difference in today's market," explains Kerry Mitchell, the president and founder of Green Real Estate Education.
The key is to make improvements to your home's energy efficiency, and document how the monthly bills. Highlight the savings to any potential buyers, and provide comparisons for similar-sized houses in your region. For details visit the Dept. of Energy.
Small Steps Do Add Up So, how do you get started? The first thing you should do is to replace as many light bulbs as you can with CFLs (compact fluorescents). CFLs use a quarter of the electricity as regular bulbs, and lighting accounts for 20% of home energy use.
Upgrade Your "Energy Hog" Appliances The next step is to upgrade old or questionable appliances with new Energy Star-certified models. The EPA's blue and white label indicates models must be 10% to 50% more efficient than standard offerings..
Insulation can be a Strong Selling Point Make sure cracks are tightly caulked and leaks are sealed. Just doing that can drop your annual heating bill by $100, according to Department of Energy figures. Also consider if your insulation might need beefing up. 
Going Healthy Sells Another potentially untapped market is to capitalize on making your home as healthy a space as possible. There are many people with allergies, asthma, and so on who consider top indoor air quality a necessity.
So tell me, has anyone in Active Rain marketed or Sold a Green Home?
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VA Loans will allow Buyers to purchase or make energy improvements on the property and have these costs financed into the loan amount. VA will also take into consideration the savings a Buyer will recieve with "Energy Efficient Products" when determining the Residual Income ratio as well. There is a builder in West Palm Beach building Green Homes and he is busy unlike many of the Builders we see here in South Florida.