Home buyers increasingly want to live in an energy-efficient homes, and statistics show that the proportion of them willing to pay extra is rising fast. NFRC hosted a webinar on June 1 as part of its Sustainability Network, titled “Residential Green Building Demand & Certification Trends,” to share the numbers and what they mean for the fenestration industry.
The event began with Amanda Stinton, director of leadership and sustainability for the National Association of Realtors (NAR), sharing figures from the Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report survey of realtors: 50 percent reported helping buyers purchase a home with green features, a leap from 36 percent in 2021. Almost two-thirds of the realtors said that energy-efficiency technologies are valuable or somewhat valuable selling points to potential buyers.
“This speaks to the growing awareness and understanding of sustainable homes,” Stinton said. “There is value from the realtor’s side in being able to highlight and point out the energy-efficiency capabilities of specific features.”
The survey also asked realtors which green features were most important to consumers, and the top ranked group was windows, doors, and siding, cited by 36 percent of respondents as very important and by 48 percent as somewhat important. The other two top priorities were location and interior comfort.
The next presenter, Anna Stern, who manages the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Sustainability and Green Building program, said builders and realtors share the same perspective: energy-efficient homes are in demand. Its 2018 survey of 1,100 builders, NAHB found that 33 percent of builders built single-family homes with more than half of the features having green characteristics. When asked for reasons, some 68 percent of respondents said it was the right thing to do. About 47 percent cited the health benefits for occupants, and 42 percent found it boosted their professional reputation.
NAHB’s What Home Buyers Really Want 2021 survey showed efficient ENERGY STAR® windows were No. 1 on the list of most-wanted green features, with 83 percent of respondents considering them essential or desirable. They scored higher than ENERGY STAR® appliances and efficient lighting. About 65 percent of buyers said they wanted insulating glass with low-e technology. Further, triple-pane insulating glass windows ranked No. 5 on the list of green features with 73 percent indicating they were essential or desirable.
Underscoring this fact, significantly more buyers said they are willing to pay extra for a home if they understand it will lead to annual savings in utility costs, according to the survey. In fact, 57 percent said they are willing to pay $5,000 or more, on top of the price of the home, to save $1,000 a year in utilities.
NAR and NAHB now collaborate on a project to help the housing industry talk to customers about energy-efficient technologies called Home Performance Counts, which includes a toolkit and a translation tool with consumer preferences and how to match them up with the green-building products to meet their needs. This site also includes tips to explain high-performance homes and suggestions for terms to use and those to avoid.
The panel then turned to Cindy Wasser, senior manager of Green Building Programs for Home Innovation Research Labs, which manages the National Green Building Standard (NGBS) home-certification program. The NGBS certification is written in building-code language and aligned with code requirements to facilitate compliance. The value of green buildings, as well as third-party certification of their status, includes that they can be more affordable up front and over their lifespans, offer greater resiliency, and enhanced health and comfort benefits, Wasser said. For now, multifamily builders are more likely to seek the certification than those focused on single-family construction, with more than 300,000 structures currently certified or seeking it, compared with about 28,000 for single-family homes. Certification rose 24 percent in 2021 compared to 2020.
Wasser also said there could be policy changes to support these trends such as the potential for updates to the national energy code through the Build Back Better Act, which the codes haven’t been refreshed since 2016. NABC’s Stern noted that one area of policy action is financing incentives programs. They could be available from all levels of government through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which includes deploying new technologies to reduce emissions.
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