Certified green and efficient homes are selling faster and for more money than their non-green counterparts in the pacific northwest according to an article in USA Today. While it is a short period of time to examine, green homes in Seattle rose in value from September 2009 through Januaray 2010 while other homes lost value.
This builds on data released last June that showed that green homes increased in value in 2007 and 2008 while other homes saw declines.
Unfortunately multiple listing services in other parts of the country do not track green vs. non-green home sales, so determining if this is a nationwide trend is difficult. Evidence does seem to point to buyers realizing that efficiency, clean indoor air and other benefits of green homes do have economic value.
Given the size and scope of the existing built-environment, not only do we need to build more green homes, we need to retrofit existing dwellings. Will those green retrofits provide the same cost benefits?
Green houses is need of hour, and we will have to go for some legislation to build only green houses in future.