October 2014 market snapshot new construction

In the Portland proper there were 597 new home starts that sold over the last 6 months.

Here is the break down
19.4%  of the homes were green certified homes
61% of the certified homes were Earth Advantage
23% of the certified homes were Energy Star
18% of the certified homes were LEED

Northwest Earth Institute has a challenge for you! Join me!

The idea of changing for the betterment of the planet can be overwhelming.  Northwest Earth Institute makes it easy to start looking at how we can change our behavior and make a more positive impact on the planet. 

Here is the link for the challenge  http://www.ecochallenge.org/about_the_challenge/choose_your_ecochallenge

Have fun with it and stretch to see if you can do some of this stuff.

On a personal note.  One that I like is turning the heat down.  A friend of mine also suggested a step further with this~ not turning on the heat for as long as you can stand it. I tried this myself.  Funny thing is the body starts to acclimate.  See what you discover!

Pdx Its about the infill ~See the cream of the crop October 11th 10 am to 4 pm

Portland is trying it's best to make a dense city.  Some of the infill is exemplary.  It is thoughtfully designed with different considerations.  Getting dense is not all that easy.  There are so many design issues that come into play.  I have seen some good infill and a lot of it is done by professional architects.

Why would that make a difference?  They are trained to consider things like function and form.  They are trained to think about context.  This matters to people who live around the new infill.  I posted earlier about an architect designed ADU that was in a very tiny space and was private!  The designer considered what it would be like to live there.

American Institute of Architects is having a tour featuring some of this year's architect designed infill projects.  Tickets are $40

This is an AIA event 

visit aiaportland.org

503.223.8757

Best green home on tour ~ 4612 NE 38TH

This is one of those homes that have two value ads with it.  It is an Earth Advantage green build and it is thought through from an aesthetic point of view. Built by Oliver Olson of Olson Design Build This house is on the market for $799,000.  The main house has 3 bedrooms up and 2 baths, and a half bath on the main.  The ADU has one bath and one loft bedroom.

The second piece is what I am more focused on today.  Aesthetics are clearly important to this builder.  Strong geometric forms are reinforced by the finish choices.  The eaves of the roof pass through the house and are articulated in the wood finish on the ceiling of the interior public space.  The overhangs also serve a practical function of protecting the building and keeping the rain away from the walls and foundation.

One thing I quite enjoyed about the finish choices is that they were placed to really define a space or a transition from one space to another.  A nice example of this is the way the outdoor back yard area is made through the red pavers.  They are not used to provide the path to the ADU which is nestled in the back of the house with a good degree of privacy.  The Adu is very well done with lots of light and privacy.

Blogged about with permission (Kathleen)

Three easy care house plant that take out toxins

One of the things you can do to improve your indoor air quality is to improve it through house plants.

Spider plants make great house plants and it has long been known to clean the air.  They are easy to start and share too.  They make new plants like strawberries do.  They send a shoot with a baby plant attached.  They  filter Formaldehyde ammonia, xylene and Tolune for the air.

The Peace lily is a very tolerant plant and it is beautiful when it blooms.  This plant takes out the following toxins: benzene, formadahyde, xylene and ammonia.

The snake plant does not need much but it gives a lot by passively absorbing toxins such as nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde.

 

 

Who is leading the charge builders or homeowners?

Solar panels and Geothermal

There has been a push to green our housing stock and there are some big ticket items that can be incorporated into our buildings.  I got curious with my last post here because I noticed that a lot of the new green certs were not using a full solar system or using geothermal.  In fact this year stats so far for new construction is that .00064 percent of sold new homes had either geothermal or a full PV system.

Home owners are leading this charge on getting solar or geothermal into their homes.  Home owners that have sold this year that have either a full PV system or geothermal systems make up .0058% of the sold homes.  Neither number is great But home owners are doing better than builders.

To be fair there was a small percentage of PV ready homes that were not included in this look into where we are in greening our housing stock.

Green certifications and affordability ~ First timers and million dollar homes

Apparently the very wealthy and the first time home buyers are the ones that like to pay the most for a green certified home. 

Homes selling over a million in the territory that RMLS covers in Oregon and Washington buyers are willing to pony up an extra $54 dollars a square foot.  More interesting is that these homes are not hitting the open market.  Does that mean they might get more???  Who knows because over the last three months these homes are not listed on the MLS until they are sold.

What intrigues me more is the people that have the least money are also willing to pay more for the homes that have green certifications, like energy star and earth advantage.  They paid $32 dollars a square foot more.  The ones that had Earth Advantage sold for 2 dollar more per foot than did the Energy star homes.

Homes that sold from $300,000 to one million saw a smaller increase in price for the certification.  Those folks paid from $14 to $16 dollars a square foot more for their homes.  I think this set of folks is the wisest set.

This is a study by Kria Lacher of the entire RMLS territory of green certs vs not  about single family