Local Coalition offers Green Certification Training for Home Appraisers
By Greg Slater
It has been several years since builders first turned an eye towards changing their building practices towards producing tighter, more comfortable homes that are less costly to operate. In the past, the builders were doing a lot of work to educate buyers on the benefits of homes built this way. Fast forward to today, the demand for “green” or higher performance homes is well documented and a reality of our market. It is hard to find a builder not embracing these practices and many are pushing the envelope by adding solar into the mix. They are even using third party scoring systems like the HERS Index to document the home’s performance.
As further proof of this growing demand, organizations like LEAP and Pearl are helping existing homeowners make energy efficiency improvements as well as highlight the marketability and value add of these features in the home sales process. As advocates for these types of features, REALTORS are at the forefront of the conversation to prove this added value. There is plenty of research to support this theory and those of us on the front lines are more than aware that buyers find homes with these features more desirable and are willing to pay more for them.
Now that it has been several years, we are starting to see a fair amount of these new homes come back to the market along with resales that have been updated with these types of improvements. In order to connect the dots between these improvements and their value, we have turned our attention to the appraisal process.
Through a Project Team at CAAR, we have created a coalition of local home builders like Southern Development Homes, Craig Builders, Stanley Martin Homes, Echelon Homes, Bramante Homes (and others) along with Sigora Solar, Pearl, and First Heritage Mortgage to raise funds to bring some of the best available training available through the Appraisal Institute and subsidize the cost for our local and state community of appraisers.
This training will occur from April 18th-21st right here in Charlottesville. Click here to view full invitation. We invite all appraisers to take advantage of this coursework as classroom space allows. Feel free to contact me for more information or share this blog post with any appraisers in the area interested in this type of training.
Greg Slater is an Associate Broker at Nest Realty. With his real estate career beginning in 1996, Greg is now the Realtor representative for Bramante Homes Inc. He has extensive experience in most segments of the residential market and is known as one of the area’s foremost new construction experts. Learn more about Greg on his website, GregSlaterAgent.Com.