Listing and Selling your Green Home

You’ve upgraded your home with the latest green features and there’s an eco-friendly buyer out there looking for a green home. How can the two of you connect?

Choose a green real estate agent

Hire a real estate agent who knows as much about green homes as you do. About 5,000 REALTORS® nationwide have earned the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Green Designation by taking classes in green building, sustainable business practices, and green home marketing. A private company offers the EcoBroker designation.

Questions to ask a REALTOR® who specializes in green homes:

• Have you had special training in selling green homes?

• Do you serve buyers seeking green houses and do you have a list of buyers actively seeking green homes?

• How many green home sales have you completed in the past year?

• How do you market a green home differently than a regular home?

Ask whether your MLS is green

About 30 to 40 of the 900 home MLSs nationwide (databases where agents list properties for sale) have special fields in which your agent can identify your home’s green features. Agents for potential buyers can search a green MLS to look for a green home or green features like solar panels or an energy-efficient furnace. 

Over time, as the home MLS data grow, the results will help appraisers easily find comparable sales of green homes, which they can then use to more accurately value a green home like yours. 

On the web, large sites that use home MLS data offer some green home search capacity. At www.Realtor.com, you can search broadly for energy-efficient homes, but not for specific features like solar panels. At Trulia.com you can use keyword search terms like “solar” or “green,” but in addition to pulling homes with green features, that search will also bring back listings by real estate agents named Green and homes on streets with the word “solar” in the name.