Green Flash from EcoBroker®
Clarification: This press release was issued by Earth Advantage Institute, Read online article here.

New Certified Homes Command 18% Price Premium in
2009-2010 More Than One in Five Homes
Achieve a Sustainability Standard

PORTLAND, Ore., June 16, 2010 - While fewer new homes were built in the past year in the Portland metropolitan area than in the previous year, the market share of third party certified homes increased. Twenty three percent (23%) of all newly constructed homes in the Portland metropolitan area sold between May 1, 2009 and April 30, 2010 received a third party certification. This finding is based upon data reported by the Portland area RMLS to Earth Advantage Institute.

The term “certified home” refers to homes that received an Earth Advantage, Energy Star, or LEED for Homes designation, or a combined Earth Advantage/Energy Star designation. Certification and sales information is reported by participating real estate brokers to RMLS. The Portland metropolitan area region includes Multnomah, Clackamas, Columbia, Washington and Yamhill Counties in Oregon and Clark County in Washington.

This finding continues a three year trend in which the market share of certified homes in the Portland region has increased. Please see Table One below for detail.

Homes with a third party certification sold for more than their non-certified counterparts, both in the new home and existing home markets. New homes in the six county Portland region sold for 18% more, while existing homes with a certification sold for 23% more.

“As energy efficiency and healthier homes gain more attention, builders and homeowners increasingly place value on home certification,” said Sean Penrith, executive director, Earth Advantage Institute. “It is very encouraging to see the market share of certified homes continue to rise over the past three years despite the difficulties in residential markets.”

RMLS reports sales data by county. Table Three below provides more detailed information on the range of price premiums observed in different parts of the Portland metropolitan area. Clark County, WA was the one area in the metropolitan region where newly constructed certified homes did not sell for more. However, certified existing homes in Clark County continued the trend. As a group, existing homes with a sustainable certification in Clark County sold for an average of $278,400 versus $234,100 for homes without such a certification, or 16% more.

The Portland area RMLS first began collecting information about home certification in the spring of 2007. It is the first RMLS in the country to do so.

About Earth Advantage Institute
Earth Advantage Institute works with homeowners, homebuyers, builders, and developers to bring the most energy efficient, sustainable, and healthy homes to the market. The organization is an independent, nonprofit resource group that certifies homes and communities based on conformance to ENERGY STAR®, Earth Advantage®, or LEED® for Homes standards. Earth Advantage Institute also offers education classes and has a showroom at its national center in Portland, Oregon. Earth Advantage Institute has certified more than 11,000 new homes. Earth Advantage Institute would like to thank the Portland Regional Multiple Listing Service for its assistance in compiling this information. For more information, contact Tom Breunig, Director of Marketing (503) 968-7160 x 36.

Trulia.com and RealtyTrac recently surveyed US adults to get some insight into what people *think* is involved with buying a foreclosure. Here are the Top 10 Myths that came up, and the facts to set the record straight:

1.  Foreclosures need a huge amount of work.  92 percent of consumers expressed that if they bought a foreclosure, they would be willing to make home improvements after they closed the deal, with 65 percent being willing to invest 20 percent or less of the purchase price.  Although stories of foreclosures missing plumbing and every electrical fixture are very memorable, many foreclosed homes need only the (relatively inexpensive) cosmetics that many new homeowners want to customize no matter what kind of home they’re buying: paint, carpet, etc.

2.  Foreclosures sell at massive discounts, compared to other homes.  Almost every member – 95 percent – of the surveyed group expected to pay less for a foreclosed home than for a similar, non-foreclosed home; 18 percent had realistic expectations of less than a 25 percent discount.  However, 36 percent expected to receive a bargain basement discount of 50 percent or more off the value of a similar non-foreclosure.  Reality check: while foreclosures might be discounted massively from what the former owner paid or owed, their discounts are much more modest when compared to their value on today’s market and the prices of similar homes.

3.  Buying a foreclosure is risky.  49% of respondents said they perceived buying a foreclosure as risky.  And yes - buying a foreclosure at the auction on the county courthouse steps can have risks, including the risk the new owner will take on the former’s owner’s liens and other loans.  But most buyers looking for foreclosures are looking at bank-owned properties, which are listed on the open market with other, ‘regular’ homes.  Buying these homes is really no more risky than buying a non-foreclosed home.

4.  You can’t get inspections on the property when you buy a foreclosed home.  County auction foreclosures don’t often offer the ability for buyers to have the homes inspected.  But virtually all bank-owned properties for sale on the open market not only allow, but encourage buyers to obtain every inspection they deem necessary. This is because almost every bank sells their foreclosed homes as-is, and they want to avoid later liability.  It’s in everyone’s best interests to make sure that the buyer has full information about the property’s condition before they close the deal.

5.  There are hidden costs to watch out for when buying a foreclosed home.  Sixty-eight percent of survey respondents who felt there is a negative stigma to buying a foreclosure expressed the concern that buying a foreclosure poses the danger of hidden costs. At some foreclosure auctions, there are buyer’s premiums and other hefty fees that can really add up and take a chunk out of the effective savings the buyer stood to realize. However, when you buy a bank-owned property that is listed for sale with a real estate agent, the closing costs are the same as they would be if you bought a non-foreclosed home. Overdue property taxes, HOA dues and other bills left behind by the defaulting homeowner are cleared by the bank that owns a foreclosed home before it is sold on the market, though these items should be watched out for if you buy a home at the county foreclosure auction.

6.  Foreclosures are more likely to lose their value than “regular” homes. Thirty-five percent of U.S. adults who believed there are downsides to buying foreclosed properties believed this myth. In fact, because foreclosures often offer a discount from the home’s current market value, they may offer some degree of insulation from further depreciation.  Whether a home loses its value or not has to do with the dynamics of the local market, including the area’s supply of homes, demand for homes, interest rates and the health of the employment market – not with whether the home was or was not a foreclosure at the time it was purchased.

7.  Most foreclosures happen when homeowners just walk away.  Out of homeowners with a mortgage, only 1 percent said walking away from their home would be their first choice if they were unable to pay their mortgage.  And a whopping 59 percent of mortgage-holders said they wouldn’t walk away from their home – no matter how upside down they were on their mortgage. Most foreclosures happen when the owners lose their jobs or their mortgage adjusts to the point where they absolutely cannot pay the mortgage, no matter how hard they try.  Voluntary ‘walk-away’s are simply not as popular as many people think.

8.  When you buy a foreclosure, you should lowball the bank – they are desperate to get these homes off their books.  Stories about in the press abound about the large numbers of foreclosed homes the banks have on their books.  We’ve all heard the adage that banks have no interest in owning these properties.  But the real deal is that they’re simply not desperate enough to give these places away.  Also, the banks mostly service the defaulted loans – they don’t own them.  Various groups of investors do, and they hold the banks accountable to selling the bank-owned property at as high a price as possible, helping them cut their losses.  Many banks won’t even consider lowball offers, and many bank-owned properties actually sell for above the asking price.  Before a bank will take a lowball offer, they will almost always reduce the list price first, and see if that attracts a higher offer than the lowball one they have in hand.

9.  You need to be able to pay in cash in order to buy a foreclosure.  Again, if you buy a foreclosed home on the county courthouse steps, you might need to bring a cashier’s check and be ready to pay for the place on the spot.  By contrast, bank-owned homes are bought through a more normal real estate transaction, which means buyers can obtain a mortgage to finance the home just like they would if the home weren’t a foreclosure. It is true, though, that in some markets, banks prefer offers from cash buyers, but this tends to be in situations where the property’s condition is pretty dire, and the bank knows this may make it hard for a buyer to obtain financing.

10.  It’s easier to buy a foreclosure with bad credit if you get a mortgage with the same bank that owns the property.  Think about it: why would the bank want to end up with the same property as a foreclosure, again? Well, that’s what would happen if they allowed buyers with low credit scores to buy their foreclosures just to earn the interest on the mortgage. In reality, many banks do offer incentives like lower fees or closing cost credits for buyers who use their bank for their mortgage. But the buyers must meet the same credit, income and other qualification standards as anyone else would to seal the deal. 

By Les Christie, staff writerApril 22, 2010: 4:44 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com)—If you’re delinquent on your mortgage, your credit score will suffer. Everyone knows that. The question is, by how much?

Until recently, those answers were hard to come by. Credit bureaus were uncommunicative about expressing, in points, just how much impact different foreclosure types of mortgage delinquencies have on scores.

Recently, Fair Isaac, which developed FICO scores, pulled back the curtain a bit, revealing some estimates of point-score declines following mortgage delinquency problems.

Here are the average hit your credit will take:

30 days late: 40 - 110 points

90 days late: 70 - 135 points

Foreclosure, short sale or deed-in-lieu: 85 - 160

Bankruptcy: 130 - 240

To come to these figures, Fair Isaac created two hypothetical consumers, one who starts out with a fair-to-middling score of 680 and the other with a very good one of 780. (FICO scores range from 300 to 850.)

The hypothetical person with the 780 FICO has 10 credit accounts versus six for the 580, plus a longer credit history, lower utilization of total credit limit and no missed payments on any account. The other consumer has two slightly damaged accounts. Neither have any accounts in collection or adverse public records.

See the chart above to see how each scenario affected each borrower.

Notice that for both borrowers a single one-time black mark results in steep drops, but it is when they fall further behind that things get really harsh, according to Craig Watts, a spokesman for Fair Isaac.

“The lending industry tends to regard an account differently when it has become 90 or more days late,” he said, “The likelihood that consumers will resume paying their overdue obligations drops off significantly after the delinquencies have reached 90 days.”

One reason credit companies were so closed-mouthed is that they often can’t definitively state how much each delinquencies will affect scores because there are too many variables.

Some borrowers will fall much more steeply than others for the same payment problem, according to Maxine Sweet, vice president for public education at Experian, one of the nation’s main credit bureaus.

“If you picture someone who has just one mortgage and one other credit account versus a mature credit user like me with 15 accounts, if they miss one payment that would impact their scores a lot more,” she said. “For me, one missed payment would just be a blip.”

The point loss also depends on the borrower’s starting point: People with very high credit scores have more to lose than low-score borrowers; the impact of a single blemish on an 800 score is more than on a 500.

0:00 /2:23Homeowners overtaxed
Of course, it just gets worse when you face foreclosure.

Mortgage borrowers can lose their homes three basic ways: a foreclosure; a short sale, where the home is sold for less than than is owed and the bank (generally) forgives the difference; or a deed-in-lieu, in which the borrower gives back the property and the bank again forgives any unpaid balance.

Sweet said credit bureaus generally slash scores equally for those three resolutions to someone losing their home. The important factor, she said, is that “it’s reported that you paid less on a settled account.”

Some borrowers may think that because they never missed a payment, they can “walk away” from their homes with relatively little impact on scores. Not true. “When a deed-in-lieu or short sale is reported as a partial payment, it’s treated as a serious delinquency,” Watts said, “just like a foreclosure.”

Even if borrowers made payments faithfully for years before short selling or doing a deed-in-lieu, their credit score will still take a hit. The total decline will run about 85 points for the 680 score borrower to as much as 160 for the 780 score.

Mortgage debt, combined with other financial problems, can send borrowers into bankruptcy, the worst thing that can happen to your credit score.

The effects are long-lasting, according to Sweet. In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which involves partial repayment over several years, the stain will take seven years to remove. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which involves liquidation, takes 10 years to get over.

It’s gonna cost you
Absorbing a big credit-score hit can make many transactions more costly. It’s not just paying more for credit card debt and auto loans, insurance can cost more as well.

The average savings for someone with a good versus mediocre credit score is about $115 a year for auto insurance and $60 for home, according to Loretta Sorters, of the Insurance Information Institute.

A low credit score can even make it harder to rent a home because landlords often use credit scores to weed out prospective renters.

Despite the problems a poor credit score can cause, Experian’s Sweet recommends that people who are in financial dead ends, like totally unaffordable mortgages, it’s better to recognize that and cut your losses quickly; don’t prolong the problem.

“You need to do what you need to do to get your finances back in order,” she said. “Don’t worry about your credit score

I usually publish blogs relating to finance and real estate, but this subject is so important I feel compelled to do my part in spreading the word.  My broker came across this article in the Triangle Business Journal and forwarded it to me.  I’m copying it here for you:

Thursday, March 18, 2010, 10:56am EDT
Duke study links high fructose corn syrup with liver damage
Triangle Business Journal - by James Gallagher

The corn industry is facing a new challenge over the health risks posed by high fructose corn syrup. A new study out of the Duke University Medical Center indicates that high consumption of the controversial sugar substitute is associated with liver scarring or fibrosis, similar to the damage caused by heavy consumption of alcohol.

Dr. Manal Abdelmalek, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology/Hepatology, says a study of 427 adults who suffer from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or NAFLD, indicated that those who consumed more high-fructose corn syrup were more likely to have increased liver scarring or fibrosis.

NAFLD, which is present in about 30 percent of all adults, is a condition in which fat accumulates in the cells of the liver, which could lead to inflammation or scarring, also known as fibrosis. The damage is similar to that caused by heavy consumption of alcohol, but NAFLD occurs in people who are not alcoholics.

“Unfortunately, there is no therapy for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,” said Dr. Abdelmalek. “My hope is to see if we can find a factor, such as increased consumption of high fructose corn syrup, which if modified, can decrease the risk of liver disease.”

High fructose corn syrup has been targeted by health officials as a potential cause of the growing rate of obesity. The syrup came into vogue in the 1970s as a cheaper alternative for sugar. It is now commonly found in soft drinks and other processed foods.

“There is an increasing amount of data that suggests high fructose corn syrup is fueling the fire of the obesity epidemic, but until now, no one has ever suggested that it contributes to liver disease and/or liver injury.” Abdelmalek said the next step is more studies looking at the mechanisms of liver injury.

The corn industry has recently begun an advertising campaign touting the merits and safety of the syrup.

Other authors on the study include Duke researchers Ayako Suzuki, Cynthia Guy and Anna Mae Diehl; Aynur Unalp-Arida and Ryan Colvin of Johns Hopkins University; and Richard Johnson of the University of Colorado.

Reporter e-mail: .

Interesting article I read this morning in Sundance’s Greenzine:

ShowerTek’s new “Green Choice” showerheads giving consumers more control over how, when they save water in the shower.
The average American spends about eight minutes in the shower and with Federal regulations now limiting showerheads to a maximum flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute, that means people consume roughly 20 gallons of water every time they hop in the shower. If the average person takes 6 showers per week, that comes out to 6,240 gallons per year. Factor in kids, roommates and significant others, and that water use in the shower can really add up — as can the energy required to make it hot.
But beyond simply wanting to conserve water and energy for environmental and economic reasons, some people might need to conserve water for very practical reasons, like making sure there’s enough hot water for the next person.
For those people who want a little more control over how much water they use in the shower, they might want to check out the new Green Choice showerheads from ShowerTek.
The review
Since I couldn’t very well take my laptop into the shower with me, I thought the next best thing to do would be to hunker down to write the review with the shower experience fresh in my head. Plus it was fun doing a little research while I was getting clean.
My first thoughts were that the pressure coming out of the Green Choice was actually a step-up from my older one. Even though the ShowerTek is actually a low-flow, it didn’t feel that way.
The showerhead has a little green dial on top of it that lets you control the water pressure during your shower. In theory, you’re supposed to be able to turn it way down (but stay warm) while you lather up and shampoo, then turn the pressure back up to normal as you rinse off. The little knob is the selling point of the Green Choice showerheads — and for good reason. I found it particularly useful when I wanted to rinse soap off my face, I could easily find the knob and adjust the stream so my eyeballs weren’t punished by the full-flow setting.
According to ShowerTek, a family of 4 that spends $400 per year on showers along can cut that figure in half by setting water flow to 1GPM instead of 2.5GPM. But I found the trickle of the lowest setting insufficient for most purposes, but that may also be a function of lower than average water pressure in my home in general. Similarly, the other massage settings on the showerhead didn’t do a whole lot to massage, but I imagine that would be different in a different plumbing scenario.
So while the Green Choice from ShowerTek may be great for people who want to conserve water, it might be even better for people who need to save water:  large families, vacation houses, college roommates, or really anyone who might be constricted by the size of their hot water heater. The showerhead will do wonders for people who want to finish getting that soap out of their hair while the water is still hot.
Pros:
Easy to switch between high and low pressure — could even do it with my eyes closed.
Stainless steel hose on massage unit.
Kicks up pressure in low-flow houses — I actually felt like I was getting more water than my previous showerhead when I’m pretty sure I wasn’t.
Water saving feature great for small hot water tanks
Reasonably priced: $24.95 for the standard wall unit and $29.95 for the handheld massage unit
Cons:
Plastic housing on showerhead
Excessive and redundant molded plastic packaging
Couldn’t get the full benefits of the massage feature at full pressure (though that could be a function of lower pressure at my house)