For now, I thought I would leave a few thoughts regarding the Green Real Estate/Construction and sustainability in general.

• Builders – They need desperate help with their marketing.  Green has become an extremely vague term and becomes more so everyday.  Using the term green will not make you sell.  An email I received recently from a builder had “Extra Bling for the Holidays” as the subject.  Really?  Bling?  *sigh*  No further Comments
• Industry in General – The term green is just, well, it needs to go away.  Green Construction is going to see some legal issues most likely.  If you don’t believe me, just check out the Houston Chronicle article from Christmas Day 2010 with the Attorney doing a Q&A with borderline very wrong information.  It was pretty sad actually.  Most builders that do LEED Homes have very well outlined contracts to help with this.  The side that needs the most help would be the Real Estate side of it.  Perhaps adendums from the Texas Real Estate Commission to help the Realtor community out with this?  I’ve suggested this before as well.
• Consumers -  Well, let’s just say maybe a buyer beware.  Ask a ton of questions.  Information on this blog will forever stay here.  Use it to help you if you want.  Find out what truly makes the home ‘green’.  Ask about offgassing of products,  Energy Efficiency, Insulation and of course certification.  Without the performance testing you truly do not know what you are getting.  For resale purposes the reports help as well.

From a marketing, not real estate standpoint, if you or your company need advice – I’m happy to help.  However, I’m not inclined to work for free so be prepared for a consultation fee.

Cheers to a New Year and New Beginnings.  Posts you may see in the future may be very random regarding things that interest me.  Including something I bought and am waiting to get delivered.  It’s a window weatherization product put out by the Duck company that comes with shrink wrap.  I figured for 8 bucks who could pass it up, right?  But regardless, posts will be no holds barred and fully opinionated.

2009 was a year where if the Green Homes that were ready to go did not fit within these categories, my clients became well informed on how choose a home that can be ‘greened’ up. When it comes down to it, the home has to work for the homeowner with floorplan and everything.

While many of the green developments do not get a lot of attention in the media, they are spread out through the City and zipping through the year it seemed as though there just was not a whole lot going on.

For about a week now I have been trying to figure out how to write a wrap up post for the year and today while having a conversation with someone it hit me – There really is quite a bit of GREEN in Houston when it comes to real estate.  As financing opens up a little bit I expect it to get even better.   If our giant City of Houston was not so spread out I think we would be looking at this all quite different.  After all, it was announced that Houston has the most Energy Star homes in the Nation and we don’t really feel that either.

While it would be an incredibly long post to list every green project that I’ve run across in the past year, I thought I would highlight some of them as a way to wrap up Green Homes in Houston for 2009:

~~~~~~~

Canyon Gate Communities continued to grow Lakes of Williams Ranch and Discovery at Spring Trails offering Solar Panels as a standard feature on all homes in the communities.

Parra Design Group continues to sell and are starting new LEED Certified townhomes in Upper West End.

I counted multiple Builders popping up various units inside the Loop that focused not only on Energy Efficiency but Indoor Air Quality as well.  They were not Certified under a program other than Energy Star, but they passed the Steph test.

There are a quite a few more Custom LEED Certified townhomes that went up last year including another one by GreenHaus Builders in Garden Oaks and EcoStar Custom Homes in Benders Landing.

Beazer Homes announces their E-Smart Green Homes and multiple other LARGE builders throughout the City announce that they are building to Environments for Living and a high level of it at that!

Low income housing goes solar in Houston last year!

ZK Homes goes all out with their green development in Sugarland – They had the first certified home in the City with the new NAHB program.

~~~~~~~

Taking it all in to consideration, there are a lot of Green options for Home Buyers in the City and around the Suburbs.  Let’s watch to see what happens in 2010!  Happy New Year to everyone!

For information on Green Communities or Homes in the City that may fit your needs just send me an email:  Steph@TurningHoustonGreen.com

If you have a Green Home or Development and would like a marketing plan that is out of this world, I would love to share mine with you.  Just give me a shout at the same email above.

Here is the first ever Houston Green Real Estate Market Report.  All data compiled through the Houston MLS.

Tankless Hot Water Heaters

Active on the Market

New Construction:  Jumped to 104 from 85
Resale and Rentals:  Jumped to 97 from 58

Sold in September

New Construction:  23 under contract or sold
Resale and Rentals:  12 under contract or sold

Solar Hot Water/PV

Active on the Market

New Construction:  10 down from 15
Resale and Rentals:  5 up from 3

Sold in September

New Construction:  7 under contract or sold
Resale and Rentals:  1 under contract

Insulated/Low-E Windows

Active on the Market

Built Prior to 2000:  1445 from 1850 last month
Built Prior to 1990:  830 from 1090 last month

Sold in September (Including Rentals)

Prior to 2000:  506
Prior to 1990:  308

HVAC Greater than 13 SEER – Not New Construction

Active on the Market:  491 from 455 last month

Sold in September:  172

While I would love to post information here regarding the LEED Certified, NAHB Certified and other really cool stuff such as Geothermal – It is obvious that the numbers showing and some of the listings are not accurate.  The numbers would be incorrect.  For November I will attempt to research these numbers to and give a report on my findings.

For now,  I can tell you that the number of New Construction Single Family and Townhomes popping up around town with Green Certifications is rising every quarter.

If you have a tip on a really cool Green home coming up on the market email me with the Breaking News!  Steph@TurningHoustonGreen.com

For one this is amazing because our appraisers could REALLY use this information to start PROPERLY appraising our Greener Homes.  For Two, this will allow us to tell our Home Owners in the future what features will actually pay off in the long run!

For now, the word is still getting out – I doubt that all homes with Green features are being noted as such.  There is also evidence that some of the homes are tagged incorrectly -Not even 90 days in to having these fields available there is not enough data yet to state whether or not homes with certain features definitely sell for more money than those without -

BUT, there IS enough data to show certain trends that we as Real Estate Professionals are going to start seeing more and more.

Personally I have been amazed at the number of homes in the Houston area that have Solar PV or Solar Hot Water.  The other trend that appears to grow by the week in MLS is the number of homes with Tankless Hot Water Heaters and Older homes with Low-E windows.

Each month we can start tracking more and more but for now here are some numbers on trends for new and existing homes.

Tankless Hot Water Heaters-

• 58 Resales and Rentals
• 85 New Construction

Solar Hot Water/PV-

• 3 Resale
• 15 New Construction

Insulated/Low-E Windows-

• 1850 Built Prior to 2000
• 1090 of which built prior to 1990

HVAC Greater than 13 SEER-

• 455 not New Construction

These are just a few of the new fields available and while they are not on the Public Search side of HAR.com yet – It is a relief to have them available to the agents.  I believe as we continue to track the statistics we will find that the majority of ALL home buyers want Green features – Their requests for those features are just disguised as another term.

Coming up next month?  How many of these homes right here listed will go under contract in September?

If you would like a list of any of these particular homes available, homes with any other green features or for a marketing plan for your specific property I can be reached at Steph@TurningHoustonGreen.com -