Well, Houston Association of Realtors greened up the MLS recently! What does that mean? That means that as a licensed agent and member of HAR I can search out specific homes with specific green features such as type of insulation, ‘Green’ Certification such as LEED or NAHB Green, Tankless Hot Water Heater, SEER great than 13, etc.
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-
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 -
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 3:34 pm and is filed under Green Market Reports.
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