Are green homes endangered by market conditions?
Building industry insiders report to me that major homebuilders are pushing suppliers to lower costs by 10%, in a bid to keep some profits from new home sales. Does this mean that the growth of “cost-added” green homes is endangered? Energy-efficient products that cost more may be pushed aside by larger builders as the market slide in new home construction continues unabated. Major builders are reported abandoning long-time top-tier suppliers who try to pass along cost increases. With the top 10 homebuilders completing something like 35% of all new homes, is the growth of green building endangered, or will the growth move even more strongly to the mid-size builder, a firm that does perhaps 200 to 400 units a year, and who’s looking for the marketing edge the green differentiator could bring? One of the few bright spots reported to me happens when a small additional investment in energy efficiency can help a builder “over the hump” to claim the $2,000 federal tax credit for homes exceeding by 50% the baseline standard of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Message: if your baseline home is already energy-efficient, you may be willing to spend an additional $500 to reap the $2,000 tax credit, so long as you think you can actually sell the home right away.
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