Archive for March, 2010

Green Mortgages

Though the general public is just now becoming aware of green mortgages, they’ve actually been around for decades. They are also referred to as Energy Efficient Mortgages or Energy Improvement Mortgages.

A green mortgage allows you to roll in the costs of making specific energy saving improvements to the home you are building or purchasing. This will, of course, increase your monthly mortgage payment but since because these improvements will drastically lower your energy, gas and water consumption, your monthly utilities will decrease even more so than your mortgage. Saving you money every month.

Besides lowering your total monthly bills, you will be eligible to receive tax credits from the federal and local governments for many of your improvements. You properties resale value may actually increase due to the improvements and having an energy efficient home will make the home more attractive to potential home buyers should you decide to sell your home.

Individual monthly savings will differ depending on the degree of the property’s energy efficiency. We’ve seen instances where the home energy efficiency improvements have led to monthly savings of $400 and greater.

Adding energy features such as solar panels and even residential wind turbines have allowed some green mortgage holders to be free of monthly electric bills altogether. Some companies will even pay you if your home generates more electricity than you use by giving the unused portion back to the grid.

Energy Efficient homes not only save you money, they are healthier to live in too. Read “Efficient & Healthy Homes” to learn how.

Real Estate by Lisa Scherzer (Author Archive)

Consider an Energy-Efficient Mortgage

Would you sign up for a mortgage that qualifies you for a bigger loan with less income and makes the world a greener place?

You might be able to through an energy-efficient mortgage, or EEM, the government loan granted to borrowers who build or upgrade their homes with energy-efficient features. The problem is most consumers either don’t know about the program, which has been around since the early 1990s, or they aren’t taking advantage of it.

Enter the Obama administration. Hoping to push home buyers and owners to act greener, the president is funneling about $50 million to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to jumpstart the EEM program. In December, he signed the fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill for a number of federal agencies, including HUD, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Labor – all devoted to clean energy efforts.

What does the new funding mean for home buyers and owners? Not much detail has been released yet; HUD and the Department of Energy (DOE) are still determining how best to position this product so more people take advantage of it, a HUD spokesman says.

One thing the department says it is aiming for is a more streamlined process of obtaining an energy-efficient mortgage – both financially and logistically. The existing program is perceived as complicated and inaccessible. Now, HUD and the DOE are trying to come up with an easier-to-access and less expensive model, says Michael Wolfe, executive director of Energy Programs Consortium, a nonprofit policy group, which is pilot testing an Energy Star mortgage program in several states.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Fannie Mae and the Department of Veterans Affairs all have some version of an energy-efficient mortgage. (There are some differences between the various loans, but the basic ideas are the same.)

Read more: Consider an Energy-Efficient Mortgage at SmartMoney.com http://www.smartmoney.com/Personal-Finance/Real-Estate/Should-You-Consider-an-Energy-Efficient-Mortgage/?cid=1228#ixzz0hCD20GDu