Building a green-rated house is one thing; selling it is another. Incomplete Multiple Listing Service data and property appraisers who don’t know enough about the benefits of green building both have been blamed when green homes don’t attract enough buyer interest.
Writing at BiggerPockets.com, blogger Jim Simcoe offers another possibility: a poor choice of words in advertising.
“With a green home, your marketing needs to be different than what you would do for a typical home,” Simcoe says.
Among his suggests:
- Use “high performance” instead of “green” when describing the property. High performance is more accurate, and the term suggests high energy efficiency.
- “Sell the steak, not the sizzle,” meaning that marketing should focus on the “real-world benefits of the home, not the pie-in-the-sky stuff.” For example, buyers are more interested in lower utility bills than they are in theoretical arguments about global warming.
- Make sales flyers more effective by listing specific benefits of the house and the dollar value that’s attached to them. For example, point to an Energy Star qualified water reader that reduces water-heating costs by 25%, or various energy-efficiency features that save the buyer $150 a month.
- Say “nontoxic” or “low toxins” instead of “ecofriendly.” “The latter is nice,” Simcoe writes, “the former is needed.”
- Post placards inside the house pointing to specific features, such as “nontoxic wall paint,” “energy-efficient water heater,” and “insulated water pipes.”
“Successful marketing is not about clever jingles or cool graphics,” he says. “It’s all about showing the value in your product to your prospect. Green properties are no different. Show your prospects the value (to them) of your home. Be clear and sell them on their needs. Remember, comps don’t sell homes, value sells homes.”
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These are great tips! Prospective home buyers need to see the value in a green home, so using key words like "nontoxic" and "energy efficient" will catch their attention and make them realize they like those features in a home.
We often get asked by our customers how the new technologies affect their resale value. We always recommend house owners record their energy costs (or earnings in the case of Feed in Tariffs) and supply those to prospective buyers. Especially if they have data from prior to various upgrades.
Home buyers can always compare this to their own energy bills. We've got an upcoming blog about this on our website: http://www.completerenewables.co.uk/
I had never really considered buying a green house before. I think that having enough space for variety and quantity are going to be your best bets. Of course, the deal breaker will be on how well built the actual structure is. The rest is pretty flexible to work with.
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