Today we released the results of our “Living Green” consumer survey. The survey has been nine months in the making as we had it done in conjunction with the Better Homes and Gardens “Living Green” 15-city home show tour. At each stop along the way, we had pollsters interview visitors to the exhibit. As you can see in the video above, there were some pretty savvy people hosting the exhibit. Steven Whittle did an outstanding job “representing” green and all that the exhibit had to offer people in the way of raising their awareness regarding this important issue.

I think our survey results were pretty interesting, from how green people rated themselves, to what they are doing to be green. For the real estate folks, we asked what people thought about working with a green certified real estate agent (2 out of 3 say it would be important) and what they were willing to spend on greening up the home if they knew it would help them sell it (1 in 3 would be willing to spend more than $5K)

I’ve run across some interesting stats from NAR to build a case here for why going green makes sense for the home seller. Here goes:
•    According to NAR, 46{0a8e414e4f0423ce9f97e7209435b0fa449e6cffaf599cce0c556757c159a30c} of buyers would like a green home, saying it was “very important,” whereas only 2{0a8e414e4f0423ce9f97e7209435b0fa449e6cffaf599cce0c556757c159a30c} of existing American homes contain green features (according to a McGraw-Hill Construction Information Group report released in Oct. 07) (How’s that for a supply and demand argument?)
•    If you green up your home, you are differentiating it in a special way. Considering that there is about 10 months of housing supply on the market, differentiating a property is more important than ever.
•    Furthermore, According to NAR, Home buyers who ranked energy efficiency as “Very Important” purchased homes that had a median price $12,400 higher than those who ranked it “somewhat” or “not important.”
•    With that being the case, there is evidence that homebuyers who are more aware of the importance of environmental stewardship are willing to spend more money on the homes they are buying.
•    As awareness levels continue to rise the ranks of people who rate energy efficiency as very important are certain to grow, thereby creating a positive cycle for the greening of real estate.

As Steve Whittle says in the video clip above, “Green is Mainstream.”