Get ready to talk up more green features with your homebuyers and sellers, and let them know how they can reduce energy usage in the home. More than half of REALTORS® say that their consumers are showing a greater interest in real estate sustainability issues and practices, according to NAR’s REALTORS® and Sustainability report, which stems from NAR’s new Sustainability Program.
To help start these conversations, more Multiple Listing Services are adding data entry fields to identify a property’s green features. Forty-three percent of REALTORS® surveyed say their MLS now has green data fields; 19 percent say they do not.
REALTORS® say they see value in promoting energy efficiency in listings, with seven out of 10 feeling strongly about the benefits in promoting such features to clients.
The green home features REALTORS® say clients are considering “very” or “somewhat important” surround a home’s efficient use of lighting; a smart/connected home; green community features, such as bike lanes and green spaces; landscaping for water conservation; and renewable energy systems, such as solar and geothermal. Eighty percent of real estate agents and brokers said that solar panels are available in their market, and 42 percent said solar panels increase the perceived property value of the home too.
Twenty-seven percent of real estate professionals surveyed reported that in the last 12 months they’ve had 1 to 5 properties with green features. Seventy percent of real estate pros, however, say they had no properties with green features in that time.
That is “leaving a great deal of room for future growth,” NAR notes in its release on the survey findings.
Indeed, “as consumers’ interest in sustainability grows, REALTORS® understand the necessity of promoting sustainability in their real estate practice, such as marketing energy efficiency in property listings to homebuyers,” says NAR President William E. Brown. “The goal of the NAR Sustainability Program is to provide leadership and strategies on topics of sustainability to benefit members, consumers and communities.”
NAR recently launched the REALTOR® Sustainability Program to aid greater talks on sustainability issues among REALTORS®, brokers, allied trade associations, and consumers, and provide resources to help educate on such topics. Learn more.
Source: “REALTORS® and Sustainability: 2017 Report,” National Association of REALTORS® (2017)
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