Estate and mortgage
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Builders Helping Build Better Communities, And Investment Possibilities
form of energy we can buy. They are educated now and are interested in this particular subject. We feel that the turnaround particularly in the custom home building right now is going to be driven by those buyers looking for energy efficiency and trying to find ways to cut down on their utility costs and protect themselves against higher utility costs. What we want is not only energy efficient mortgages available, because you are absolutely right if you can save $200 in utility costs per month because you"ve increased the energy efficiently of the home, you can certainly afford $200 more on your mortgage payment to trade off on that. Elliott mentioned the HERS rating system, the Home Energy Rating System. They actually have a sticker that if a builder goes out and has a HERS inspection done on a house, the sticker comes back and tells how that house borrows relative to the average home, relative to a home built under current codes. It"s almost like the EPA mileage rating on a car so that somebody can walk up to a car window and see what the mileage rating is, somebody can actually walk up to a home in see the HERS rating sticker and know how energy efficient that home is. Eisenberg: It"s also important to point out that the VA has energy efficient mortgages available, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac too as well as FHA. Whitney: We"d like to see the MLS listing on a home eventually have a check off box that indicates the energy efficiency of the home. We"d like to see appraisal forms have an indicator or they can adjust the value of the home based on the energy efficiency of the home. We"d like to see it on HUD statements. We"d like to see it any place we possibly can so that the homebuyers can be aware of the actual energy efficiency of the home they are buying and understand the value of that. It helps them in obtaining their mortgage. Mosca: What is you golden nugget for today? Eisenberg: There are a lot of states that are doing remarkably well. We hear a lot about places like Phoenix, I"m sorry Dean, Los Angeles, southern Florida but states like Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas that we mentioned before, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Alaska, Washington State also, these are all states that have relatively very low default rate. It"s generally speaking half as high or less than half as high as the national average. House prices in these states have done remarkably well. They by and large did not experience the booms and aren"t going to experience the busts. Investing in those places is much less risky than people think. Whitney: The fish and the wildlife here in the state of Idaho are going to be ecstatic when all of the builders come back out of the wilderness and get back into building homes again. Harp: We talked a lot in this conversation about the folks that might be on the fence who are waiting on a tax credit. While it"s virtually impossible for anybody to hit the bottom of a market whether it is the stock market back or the home building market, we are there. There is no better time to buy a house than now, not in a year or two or three because I feel they will be more expensive in the future. Now is the time to buy.Pages: 1 [2]