Cost Effective Energy Efficiency

At the Showcase Home in Shady Cove, Oregon

The Showcase Home in Shady Cove, OR provides an excellent example of how to build a cost effective, energy efficient home.  Alternative and affordable construction techniques used in the Showcase Home will save the future homeowner money and increase the comfort of the home.   

The builder used advanced framing techniques of: 24” on center studs, insulated headers and raised heel trusses all of which significantly increased the insulation levels of the thermal envelope.  This strategy not only saves energy but it reduced cost of materials by using less wood.

What Else Don’t You Know About Your Home?

With the downturn in the housing market many builders and developers are looking for creative solutions to weather the storm.  This has resulted in a number of different tactics by builders including a focus on the remodel market, building at the lowest possible cost, building green or high performance homes, or just getting out of the industry all together. 

Arguably, one of the most interesting approaches builders have used to differentiate themselves is embracing transparency, allowing the homebuyer to truly understand what they are purchasing.  Builders have begun to use green building certifications and energy performance scores as tools to achieve this more transparent message.  By bringing progressive construction features into the foreground, builders are creating a new set of buying criteria not seen before in the residential market.  The measures they are highlighting -- that improve energy efficiency, durability, and improve air quality -- should be important to consumers.  Many of America’s leading builders, such as KB Homes, are making this case to their buyers every day.

It Ain’t Easy Being Green: A Day in the Life of a Field Technician

A morning inspection at a home built by W. A. Hughes home -- Oregon High Performance Home, Energy Star, Earth Advantage Gold Certified

Being an Earth Advantage field technician requires juggling. Not the flaming sticks kind, but close to it. The team has to be highly proficient in time management, building science and above all, communication skills. With hundreds of new homes to verify each year, field techs need to distinguish what type of job they are inspecting -- Earth Advantage New Homes with ENERGY STAR energy features, ENERGY STAR-only home, a LEED for Homes project or a basic home that only gets an Energy Performance Score (EPS).  Once this is recorded, the tech then needs to look at  project location (Oregon or Washington) to determine what set of inspection criteria to follow. 

The EAI field techs start their day by downloading specific job files assigned to them from the EA New Homes Scheduler.  Once the files are downloaded, they plan out a geographic route that takes them to all of their jobs and hopefully ends up near their home or close to the office to end their day. This can become challenging depending on “windshield time” (miles to drive) and in what direction and/or if any of their inspections are time-sensitive.  We strive to finalize scheduling within the 1^st hour of the work day so we can “escape” before being pulled into other office functions that are not necessarily related to inspections.  A delayed departure can cause extra stress on the field tech as they know they have a certain amount of work to perform at each site that can take anywhere from 1 -3 hours depending on the type of inspection.

Builder Sales Tips to Increase Your Closing Ratio

Home builders and new homes sales professionals had it easy not too long ago. Practically anywhere in the country in 2004, 2005 and 2006 all one needed to do was stick a sign in the ground announcing a new home, or community, and the orders poured in. Our salespeople became order takers, and consequently some basic selling skills weren’t practiced and became rusty. For the sales rookies during this time frame new home sales strategies were sometimes never introduced to them. Why bother? We were all too busy getting rich.

The basics of new home sales are not any different from selling any other big ticket product. 

New Homes Sales Tips: Competing Against Existing Homes

The Unique Advantage of High Performance Homes

One of the biggest challenges builders face is the inventory of existing homes for sale. The financial crisis has raised this issue to a critical point because much of this inventory consists of foreclosed homes that the lenders are selling at a deep discount. Realtytrac expects 1.2 million homes will be repossessed in 2011, which is 20% more than in 2010 and would signal the peak of this current foreclosure crisis. These foreclosed homes on the market are known as the “visible” inventory. Unfortunately, the housing market will not bounce back until most of these units have been sold, as consumers are hesitant to buy if they think prices will continue to drop.  Another threat is the “shadow” inventory, which are homes lenders have foreclosed on, or will soon, but are withholding from the market because they don’t want to further depress prices. Corelogic estimates that as of August 2010 the shadow inventory consisted of 2,100,000 housing units! The other component of existing inventory, speculative new home construction, is at historic lows. As of last November there were approximately 197,000 new homes for sale nationwide, the lowest since March 1968. Therefore, a new home builder is much more likely to be competing against an existing home than a new home.

Top Ten Green Building Trends for 2011

January is a time we all look forward to because the new year holds such promise. We believe it's going to be a promising year for the green building industry -- despite flat market conditions for conventional homes, we've seen market share for high performance homes increase from 18.5 to 23 percent in the Portland Metro area alone. In both Seattle and Portland 1 of every 4 new homes is certified. Clearly the time has come for energy efficiency, and with it, healthier green homes.

In keeping with the spirit of renewal, we are releasing our annual green building trends for 2011. The trends, which range from “affordable green” to lifecycle analysis of materials, were identified by Earth Advantage Institute based on discussions with a range of audiences over the latter part of 2010. These sectors include policymakers, builders, developers, architects, real estate brokers, appraisers, lenders, and homeowners. We encourage you take a look, cogitate and comment...

New Certified Homes Command 18% Premium

While fewer new homes were built in the past year in the Portland metropolitan area than in the previous year, the market share of third party certified homes increased. Twenty three percent (23%) of all newly constructed homes in the Portland metropolitan area sold between May 1, 2009 and April 30, 2010 received a third party certification. This finding is based upon data reported by the Portland area RMLS to Earth Advantage Institute.