Green investing question

[Jerome Adams]

I was curious if anyone had any success with green investing. I have a passion for renewable energy and real estate investing as well and wanted to merge the two. Since I currently work for a renewable energy company that designs systems for both residential and commercial, I was thinking about contacting investors who specialize in this niche to possibly partner up with my company. I would use this to get my foot in the door to real estate investing and learn up close and personal about operation cost and value added with renewable systems. Any other advice about how to merge these two?

[John Espinosa]

My company is in the process of pumping out green energy savvy and healthy retrofits in our local market.

I say savvy because we go to the extent of putting out a better product than the average home "flippers" in our area, yet we don't necessarily break the bank.

Here is the medium ground we have found. And what we do with our properties in order to consider them green and a better product.

We are providing our homes that we flip with a much better insulation package than our competition. Our direct competition (investors we personally know, as well as others) insulate by code and only when it is needed. We rip out all drywall and plaster every time.

We are putting in much more efficient HVAC and water saving appliances in all our green retrofits. We shoot for 15 seer and above and the most efficient water heaters we can find while the competition is putting in the cheapest units and most standard wh's. we put in all low flow faucets and showers.

We replace non efficient windows and lighting fixtures with energy star rated items.

We use non volatile or renewable materials such as lowVOC paint, eco carpets, cork and bamboo flooring.

We hire a company or do it ourselves air sealing throughout the entire home.

Ofcourse we properly document everything we do that we feel is above and beyond a typical flip and have a third person energy audit completed in order to justify to the end buyer and appraiser why our home is better than a comp home.

We find that buyers love hearing from a certified professional that the home we are offering will cost them substantially less on their monthly bills than the competition, and that it was built with healthy and family conscious materials.

Our homes are not exactly getting certified for energystar or leed or anything like that, however we are getting really good HERS ratings and we find properly explained to prospective buyers they "get it"

In conclusion, by picking the upgrades that we feel matter and directly impact our end buyers monthly bills and health we find that

A. Yes we are spending on average 5-10% more on rehabs than the competition
B. We are enjoying awesome average list times
(We have a track record of 14 days being the longest it took for an accepted offer)
C. Its a hell of a lot of fun and we feel good about our product at the end of the day.
D. Building codes are changing everyday.... alot of the things we are doing now can and most likely will be code in the future anyway... we're just ahead of the competition in our eyes.