If you've bought a house or condo, you know about the mountain of paper you sign at closing. We've been deluged with press releases about a new technology that eliminates the paper in favor of an electronic signature, but before we blog that, we wanted to talk about a green idea from across the pond with greater and longer-lasting effects than just eliminating a stack of paper.
Greening the Real Estate Transaction
We've been looking into the process of buying property in Denmark. When a home changes hands there, here's what happens:
- An independent inspector comes to assess the amount and quality of the insulation and energy conservation measures in place.
- The inspector calculates how much energy the house should use under normal circumstances and then compares that to the past year's energy bills. The current owner has to explain any significant discrepancies in writing.
- The inspector prepares a list of things that could be done to decrease energy consumption, and the prospective buyer can use this list as a negotiating tactic.
It seems like this would be fairly simply to implement in the US, as we already require inspections, and have readily accessible data on energy use (i.e., bills and computerized records). The big shift would be to require the inspection to require the seller to obtain an inspection before the property goes on the market -- which then raises questions about accountability.
But if we're going to rethink the entire process of mortgages and buying and selling a home, then we might as well toss a few ideas about energy conservation into the mix.
It's worked for Denmark: in 1973, Danish homes were second only to the US in per-capita energy consumption. Today, thanks to measures like these, the country is a leader in energy efficiency.
photo by johnnyberg via sxc.hu
Comments (4)
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This sounds like an excellent idea we should start implementing it as an option. There's enough to worry about now with the 'mortgage meltdown,' but when that settles down we can make the inspections more common and possibly required.
view weezerad79's profile
I like the idea of something similar as a selling point for your house, where you could actually quantify to your buyer how energy efficient the house is.
view natalie.c's profile
EXCELLENT! This needs to be implemented ASAP. This kind of seller responsibility could stem part of the mortgage meltdown -- one ignored part of it is otherwise-responsible homeowners forced to abandon fairly new homes that were built on the cheap during the housing boom. With this sort of reform, that would (hopefully) be harder to pull off.
view madampince's profile
I bought a small apartment in Paris last year, and received a similar mandated report (in addition to independent lead analyses and documentation of the location of the apartment in relationship to Paris's flood map). It's a tiny apartment, so the financial savings won't be huge, but I've gone ahead and followed the common sense recommendations, like installing double glazing etc.
view Jaze's profile