Home Building Green in Texas is Good!
Let’s get to home building green in Texas! For a new study from The University of Texas at Austin and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) finds that new homes in Texas built to meet green building standards like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). For it’s the world’s most widely used green building rating system. They are worth an average of $25,000 more in resale value than conventional homes.
In addition, the study, “The Value of LEED Homes in the Texas Real Estate Market: A Statistical Analysis of Resale Premiums for Green Certification”.
For it found that homes built to LEED standards between 2008-2016 showed an 8 percent boost in value. All the while homes built to a wider range of green standards saw a 6 percent increase in value.
Green Premium
For the research shows there is a ‘green premium’ in the Texas single-family home market. That also came from The University of Texas at Austin’s Dr. Greg Hallman.
For the average new home in our Texas MLS dataset sells for $311,000. I mean that’s a 6-8% green premium. For it represents a significant gain for home owners. Also, developers, real estate agents and brokers.
The Green Homes study looked at more than 3,800 green-certified homes, including LEED-certified homes, built in Texas between 2008 and 2016 to determine if certification raised the resale value of homes. The study was conducted by the Real Estate Finance & Investment Center at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business.
It was based on an analysis of more than 230,000 homes in Texas. Moreover it used a regression model taking into account interior floor area. Also number of bedrooms and bathrooms, garages and the age of the home. Furthermore, if the homes were built according to green standards including LEED.
LEED-certified homes benefit the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. That’s by enhancing the health and wellbeing of occupants. Also saving costly environmental resources. For that’s like energy and water. In addition it’s providing cost savings to individual homeowners or residential building owners. On average, LEED-certified homes use 20-30 percent less energy than a home built to code. That’s with some homes reporting up to 60 percent savings. All which lowers energy costs.
The LEED Homes rating system was created in 2008. Especially as a way for single-family homes and multi-family buildings to achieve LEED certification. In addition, LEED Homes projects undergo a technically rigorous process to become certified. So that’s including multiple on-site inspections and quality assurance. More than 1.5 million residential units are currently participating in LEED in the world. USGBC’s 2015 Green Building Economic Impact report found that the residential green construction market is expected to grow from $55 million in 2015 to $100.4 million in 2018, representing a year-over-year growth of 24.5 percent. Currently, there are more than 6,890 homes certified or pursuing LEED-certification in Texas.
To learn more about the Green Homes, visit:
https://www.usgbc.org/resources/value-leed-homes-texas-real-estate-market.
Sources: U.S. Green Building Council and the McCombs School of Business, Washington, D.C. – (July 11, 2017)
