Note from the editor: please welcome Anna Altic to the Agent Genius family. Anna will be writing about the emerging trends and methodologies of green real estate, a topic we are extremely fond of and have had many requests to cover more in depth. Anna has NAR’s Green designation and currently chairs the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors environmental committee after successfully petitioning her local MLS to add over 25 searchable green features to input fields. She is highly involved in green civics locally and brings a great passion to the subject that she will be sharing here at AG. Please welcome Anna in the comments!
The final countdown
Alright all you Facebook happy agents who keep posting reminders about the impending demise of the 8k tax credit in your status update.  T minus 35 days and counting until this can no longer be the reason, “NOW is the perfect time to purchase a home.”
If this has worked for you then I say carry on, you fearless FB poster with your message of urgency in the name of government bail out. Now all we have to do is give you something to talk about. Alas, Uncle Sam is still on the dole and your new best friend should be the Homestar Energy Efficiency Retrofit Program.
The general concept is that homeowners can receive rebates ranging from a $1000 – $3000 for performing energy efficient retrofits on their homes. This more than doubles the maximum currently being offered for energy efficient retro fits and the government estimates this will offer up to $600 a year in energy savings to homeowners who participate in the program.
Getting creative for your clients
In addition, there is nothing I have seen so far that would preclude a homeowner from stacking this program with incentives being offered by their state or from their local utilities such as our TVA’s Energy Right Program.  What about energy efficient mortgages or 203k loans? I say you stack that on too! Get creative, the skies the limit on how a program like this can benefit your clientele, the environment, and the contractors who need the work.
I’ll be watching the progress of this Bill as it moves through Congress so more to come.  In the meantime, sharpen your Ezine, warm up your keyboards and practice some pithy ways to market this in 140 characters or less.
image courtesy of zoutedrop on flickr
