Sunday, March 2, 2014

Walking The Green Carpet of Green CASH

How A First Time Home Buyer Got Over $15,000 In Green Cash For Buying Green

Meet Victoria, a savvy first-time home buyer in Baltimore, Maryland was looking for a home in the low $100,000 range.  Victoria enrolled in a city-sponsored first time home buying clinic to gain knowledge of home buying. The day-long clinic covered credit worthiness, mortgage types, (FHA, Conventional, and VA) budgeting and Baltimore’s housing market. Amazingly, they still do not mention energy efficient mortgages (EEM) or energy rebates or improvements for first-time home buyers!

Fortunately, Victoria engaged my services: Cathy Allen, Realtor and The Green Ambassador. A Buyer’s Agent with Foundation Realty, LLC, I am known for walking my buyers on what I call the “green carpet of green cash”. I make sense of all the incentives and savings for buying a green home or greening an existing home. My “Green Team” of green-minded real estate professionals help me streamline and tailor each deal to my individual buyers.

WALKING THE GREEN CARPET

Victoria’s first stop on the green carpet was to trusted green team member, Kofi Ofori, Loan Officer for Supreme Lending. Kofi introduced Victoria to the benefits and safety of an Energy Efficient Mortgages (EEM) and pre-qualified her by determining her debt to income ratio.  EEM mortgages reward credit-worthy borrowers with additional money above the standard maximum loan amount to make energy improvements to an existing home.


“After Cathy explained how my energy efficient mortgage would work, I was able to view homes with an energy efficient mind.  Whether or not I could make a home energy efficient was just as important as all of my specifications I desired.” – Victoria 

With her pre-qualification letter in hand and energy efficiency on her mind, Victoria continued her search in finding her home on the green carpet. The first home that caught Victoria’s eye was a three-bedroom, two bath, end of group townhome with finished basement. As a green-oriented Realtor, I always check for energy loss problems before allowing a buyer to fall in love with a house. So, our tour revealed no roof insulation, quarter-sized holes in the wall, outdated baseboard-heating and drafty windows. Victoria knew she could never afford to heat and cool a house that was wasting so much energy!

“Most home buyers purchase homes without any regards to energy cost associated when owning a home.”-Kofi Ofori Loan Officer EEM.

The home Victoria eventually chose had its own inefficiencies - no roof insulation and a 20 year old, but still-working furnace. This is where a green realtor works better for you than a traditional agent: if a furnace merely passes a home inspection that’s good enough for most realtors. But on the green carpet, a 20 year old furnace will not benefit the home buyer in the future.

As a certified green realtor, I advised Victoria to call an energy rating company to perform a blower and carbon tests on that still-working 20 year old furnace. The blower test revealed the furnace lost energy and the carbon test revealed the still-working furnace was leaking toxic levels of carbon monoxide into the air. From those findings, I was able to negotiate a new $7,000 furnace for Victoria at the sellers’ expense!  The rater also recommended energy improvement steps to reduce Victoria’s annual energy costs by $500. In Victoria’s case a total of $3,766 was added to her loan for energy improvements costs such as: energy efficient lighting, attic insulation and chalking the interior of the house.

Armed with her EEM energy improvements cash, Victoria met another Green Team member - Retrofit Baltimore, a nonprofit agency of energy advocates, who screen and recommend contractors for energy improvements and identify grants, rebates, and other energy-related incentives.  In addition to finding a qualified green-contractor for Victoria, Retrofit Baltimore identified another $1,883 of utility energy rebates.

In short, I helped orchestrate a $5,649 grand total of energy rebates and incentives paid to Victoria.
Cathy-L-Victoria-R

"Traditional real estate ends at the sale, green real estate reaches for the future." -Cathy Allen, Realtor and The Green Ambassador for Maryland.

Before settlement, I led Victoria to her final stop on the green carpet, at a municipal program office where she received $10,000 in grant dollars because the home was vacant for over a year and qualified for a special down payment program.


In summary, hire the green team as your real estate sustainability team, so you can Walk The Green Carpet of Green Cash.

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