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We're working to make our home more energy- and water-efficient. Why? Partly because we think it's the right thing to do. Partly because we want to lower our usage and bills. And partly because we think that those improvements may help us when the time comes to sell our house. It's not like power and water are going to get cheaper, after all.

I can understand why current sellers would not be happy with this, but hopefully over time it will be another encouragement to others to make their homes more efficient.

I absolutely agree. Sure, the sellers are going to gripe, but it's such a great thing for a buyer to know.

I disagree with making it mandatory for the seller. Especially in this market. A lot of homes are short sales or already priced as low as a seller can go. It is better for the economy overall to sell homes both at all and at reasonable (not inflated nor overly low) prices.

Why not make it something like the home inspection that a smart home buyer will take the time and money to do, often writing it into the contract that the price etc can be renegotiated based on the results? For example, my home inspection showed a handle of minor issues and the need for a new roof. So I negotiated a change of price (cash back) for the roof and handled the rest myself. My inspector included a limited energy audit and told me that the local utility company could do a more complete one for $15. (So the $200 in the article sounds excessive also).

Let people know about it, allow banks to require it for a mortgage loan, give tax breaks for anyone who both does the audit and does repairs (either buyer or seller). Encourage without forcing basically.

Criminal charges are also IMHO beyond excessive. Waste of court time and tax money. Many speeding violations aren't criminal but speeding is a lot more dangerous to society than a home seller who doesn't get an energy audit (especially in a poor economy).

Mandatory is good, especially in Austin where the housing market is not nearly as slow as the rest of the country and sellers in desirable parts of town commonly get their asking price or above without negotiation. The comment above about re-negotiating a price is a common real estate deal regardless of any new legislation and may or may not work.

I do have a problem with implementation. Putting the burden on the seller to come up with the energy audit when they may be struggling with time and money issues is not the way to go; indeed the home inspection could be used to uncover energy problems and some sort of mandatory rebate, based on the energy score, from the seller's escrow account to the buyer could work.

However the problem in all of this is that the audit, while mandatory, does not guarantee that any changes will be made and therein lies the problem.

It shouldn't be difficult to identify the energy efficiencies of a house before the sale goes through: look at the windows. If they are old, single-pane jobs, then obviously they aren't efficient. If there's no insulation in the attic, then there's obviously none in the walls, etc. This seems like another law that feels like a good idea, but really serves to enrich the private contractors who do energy audits.

The point of the audits are to reduce consumption so the city owned utility doesn't have to build another power plant. The audits focus on low cost upgrades that are the most economically viable ways to reduce energy demand. The audits are a way to bring the rebates and home's inefficiencies to light as just having rebates didn't bring enough flies to the honey. For more info on the audits or energy efficiency visit http://www.austinauditors.com and click the link you're interested in.