Home builders bet 'green' will sell

Groups focus on energy-efficient houses, hope for leg up in tough market

Home sales have been slowing for months. Job growth is flat. The inventory of unsold houses is up 25 percent from a year ago.

Is this any time to push construction methods that can add thousands of dollars to a home's cost?

The Home Builders Association of Raleigh-Wake County thinks so. The 2,800 member group announced Monday that it is joining its counterpart in Durham, Orange and Chatham counties to form the Green Home Builders of the Triangle.

The group said it wants to promote housing that meets environmental standards. It also hopes its new "green" certification will help members market homes in a glut of unsold houses.

"Especially right now, if you're trying to sell a house, anything you can do to have a competitive edge will help," said Tim Minton, the Raleigh-Wake association's executive vice president. "We're getting more calls about green building. It's becoming the expectation, and the more people do it, the cheaper it gets."

A program started by a the builders association of Durham, Orange and Chatham counties last year has had mixed success, certifying only 99 of 2,000 new homes sold in that market.

"We realize we need volume production builders if we really want to change," said Bill Beasley, an independent Durham builder who is chairman of the new group.

The Green Home Builders program expands the Durham program to the 2,800-member Raleigh-Wake builders association. It calls for builders to pay a company that would rate homes for features ranging from additional insulation to sealed crawl spaces and central vacuum systems. Categories include energy efficiency, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality and lot design. Points are awarded for gold, silver or bronze certification.

Inspections cost $500 to $1,000, depending on the size of the house. That fee is passed along to home buyers, along with the cost of environment-friendly features that can add thousands of dollars to a home's base price.

Buyers undoubtedly will recoup some of that cost in lower energy and water bills, although the builders are reluctant to issue any guarantees.

"There aren't many builders that want the liability," said Nick Tennyson, executive vice president of the Durham, Orange and Chatham builders group. "It's a question how people operate these homes -- maintenance, how they live their lives, where they set the thermostat."

Builders said demand for green houses is slowly increasing.

Four years ago, Anderson Homes, a large production builder based in Cary, began offering homes that were 30 percent more energy efficient than standard homes.

"We wanted to be different," said company Chairman Dave Servoss. "It's allowed us to sell homes."

Last year, Anderson had a record 356 closings.

The company found that buyers were willing to pay for features such as the most efficient heat pumps and R-40 insulation, which can add $6,000 to homes priced from $110,000 to $375,000.

Last year, Anderson added its "Vanguard" line of green homes, which have more efficient dual-flush toilets, landscaping with minimal grass, and drip irrigation lines instead of sprayers. The features add $3,000 to $5,000 to the cost, said Vanguard president Kip Guyon. About 50 Vanguard homes were sold in 2007.

Still, Servoss wasn't ready to pronounce the green movement in full swing in the Triangle.

"It's the early adopters right now," he said.