Archive for Buying Chicago Green Homes
Appraisals Go Green to Account for Energy Costs
Mortgage underwriters generally weigh several numbers when deciding whether a family can afford a new home. They look at income, of course, and tally up expenses in the form of a home’s property taxes, insurance premiums and monthly payments. There is one number they ignore: how much a household spends on its utilities, a figure [Read More]
Does ‘Green’ Create Green and Sell Homes?
Green car racing, green travel, green eating: everything is getting a little greener nowadays. Surprisingly, builders are still slow to adapt to the greening of the new American home. Of those who do offer ‘green’ features in their homes, only 39% (according to a Professional Builder survey) of builders share with prospective buyers energy / [Read More]
The Post Super Bowl Chicago Real Estate Thaw
Every year as the professional football season comes to a close and the Super Bowl Champion is crowned (congratulations New Orleans), Chicago real estate once again begins its annual thaw. Chicago home buyers begin to stir and think about the spring market and start poking around the web looking at what is available at current [Read More]
Northbrook Gives Rebates for LEED-Certified Homes
To promote Green building techniques in public and private sector construction projects, the Village of Northbrook has a great incentive program – giving rebates for LEED-certified homes.
Visit with Green Builder Magazine at the International Builder Show
With only one short week away, if you plan on attending this year’s International Builder Show in Las Vegas, be sure to check out Green Builder Magazine’s booth (C4861). All three editors plan on attending and spending time in the booth for you to meet in person. Ron Jones, President and Editorial Director, will be [Read More]
Top 10 Things to Put in Your Next New Chicago Home
Builder Magazine Online listed their Top 10 items for builders to consider putting in their 2010 new homes. Perhaps not surprisingly, many products on the ‘top 10 list’ are energy efficient / green building technology that is all the rage now in the industry. They are justified as important if the real AND perceived value [Read More]
Green Financing Updates And Tips For Homes
As Chicago real estate enters its traditional deep freeze of January, thankfully FHA’s Energy Efficient Mortgages (EEM’s) financing tools have been retained for home buyers in 2010. As many as 55% of entry level home buyers reported that they used FHA loans for purchasing their home in 2009. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have [Read More]
