Eye On Housing
In 2005, Congress established several energy-efficiency tax incentives related to housing that benefit new-home buyers and remodeling homeowners. These policies included the tax code section 25C credit for retrofitting/remodeling existing homes, and the 25D credit for the installation of power production property in new and existing homes. Taxpayers claim these residential energy credits using Form 5695. Including carryforwards from 2019,… Read More ›
Previous posts reported on home buyer preferences for kitchen and bath features, from NAHB’s recent study What Home Buyers Really Want, 2021 Edition. The same study also asked the panel of 3,247 recent and prospective home buyers to rate a dozen different window types and materials on the following four tier scale: The general window characteristic that home buyers value more… Read More ›
According to the U.S. Department of Energy – Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average monthly residential electricity bill in the U.S. stood at $111.67 in 2017. Electricity is one of the biggest household expenses, as it accounted for 55 percent of total utility costs and 9 percent of total housing costs in 2017, according to the American Housing Survey (AHS)…. Read More ›
On average, home buyers are willing to pay an additional $8,728 upfront on a home in order to save $1,000 a year in utility bills, according to NAHB’s recently released study, What Home Buyers Really Want (2019 Edition) (Figure 1). The study is based on a survey asking recent and prospective home buyers (people who bought homes in the previous… Read More ›
Last week’s post showed that about one-fourth of the typical homes built by a sample of 246 single-family builders in 2016 had enough green features to quality for a bronze rating under the 2015 National Green Building Standard™ (NGBS). A major reason is the high marks the homes tended to receive under the energy efficiency section of the NGBS. The… Read More ›
In a sample of homes from 246 single-family builders, about one-fourth have enough green features to meet the minimum point requirement for certification under the National Green Building Standard™ (NGBS). However, only about 11 percent of the homes actually have NGBS certifications, according to a recently released report from NAHB. The report is based on NAHB’s Green Practices Survey, which was conducted in several stages during 2017 and collected information on sustainable and… Read More ›
In 2005, Congress established a number of energy-efficiency tax incentives related to housing that benefitted new home buyers and remodeling homeowners. These policies included the tax code section 45L credit for the construction of energy-efficient homes (including for-rent residences and low-rise apartments), the 25C credit for retrofitting/remodeling existing homes, and the 25D credit for the installation of power production property in… Read More ›
On average, single-family builders use 10.2 different green products or practices, and 22 percent always or almost always have their homes certified to a green standard, according to a recent NAHB survey. The survey consisted of special questions on the January survey for the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. A total of 337 single-family builders responded to these questions, one… Read More ›
In NAHB’s latest home buyer preference survey, buyers gave high marks to particular types of green features. Indeed, ENERGY STAR® rated appliances ranked second from the top among 150 different home and community features that buyers rated on a consistent scale. Comparing results over the last several surveys shows a stable trend: preferences for particular green features in 2015 were about… Read More ›
Energy efficient windows again ranked as green feature commonly used by the most remodelers in NAHB’s Remodeling Market Index (RMI) survey for the first quarter of 2015. Nearly 9 out of 10 remodelers surveyed said they’d commonly used low-e windows during the past year. Next on the list were high efficiency HVAC systems, programmable thermostats, and ENERGY STAR appliances, each… Read More ›