News and Insights

When Mary Love wanted to sell her Long Beach, Calif., house 14 years ago, the real estate practitioner who looked at it wouldn’t take the listing. She said the house wasn’t “normal” and thought she couldn’t sell it. 

It wasn’t sleek and designer-y and its repurposed materials, EV charging station, and a roof prepped for solar panels put it outside the mainstream. 

In rehabbing the house, Love had looked at everything with an eye toward going easy on the environment. 

Maybe August feels a little early to be thinking about prepping your roof for the fall and winter. But it’s so much easier to inspect and fix your roof now when it’s sunny and warm than it is to do it when it’s cold and windy or raining or snowing. 

Joan Crowe, director of technical services with the National Roofing Contractors Association, Rosemont, Ill., says that homeowners frequently ignore the roof and start paying attention only when there’s a problem like ice dams or interior water damage. 

Earth911.com offers some simple ways to reduce your pup’s environmental impact. 

We all know that energy efficiency features frequently get overlooked during the listing or appraisal processes. Sometimes it’s due to a lack of data about green features. Sometimes it’s real estate practitioners’ lack of knowledge. And once those unique features are ignored or mischaracterized in the listing, appraisers either don’t value or undervalue them. 

They’re in. 

The Green REsource Council has announced the 2016 winners of the EverGreen Award. 

The three 2016 winners all are doing their bit day in and day out to promote green in their communities, get neighbors and colleagues up to speed on sustainability principles, and are building real estate businesses with an eye toward steadily transform the housing stock.