Austin Energy Green Building’s™ Green Home Checklist

Make Your Home a Greener Place to Live

A green home is an earth and people-friendly home, protecting the health of your family and the environment. It’s a more comfortable, durable, higher quality home. It’s easier and more economical to live in because it’s low-maintenance and energy and water efficient.

Our Green Home Checklist will help you make a more informed choice about your home. Review your home (since there’s always room for improvement) or a home you are interested in with this checklist in hand.

The Right Site
A site with smart landscaping is important to help make your home comfortable, affordable and attractive.

Water-efficient Bermuda or buffalo grass is planted in sunny areas.

The Right Design
Comfort and economy are possible when a house is designed for its site and climate.
Minimal Solar Heat Gain:

Maximum Ventilation:

The Right Exterior

Cool Shell and Attic:

Maintenance:

Maximum Insulation:

Optimal Windows:

The Right Interior
Using the right materials can improve indoor air quality and increase comfort. Choosing energy efficient appliances will save you money.

Healthy Materials:

Efficient Appliances and Lights:

Efficient Heating and Cooling

Effective Cooling Equipment:

Well-sealed Ducts:

Air Filters:

The Right Economy
Using local businesses and products keeps the local economy healthy, while reducing the affects of transportation on Austin’s air quality.

The Right Lifestyle
The right location of your home improves your quality of life.

If you have never been to a “Parade of Homes” before, you really should make it this year. The “Parade of Homes” is in Rough Hollow, a gorgeous Lakeway development which is located off Lakeway Blvd. The event will last from May 17th-June 1st. 11:00am until 8:00pm everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

In my opinion one of the neatest things about touring the”Parade of Homes” is that you get to meet and talk with the builders. They are so proud of their finished product that they enjoying sharing their stories with the public. It is also fascinating to see how many people are actaully involved in the building and selling of real estate. Just to name a few there are developers, architects, builders, contractors, designers, several vendors, landscapers, lendors, Home Builder’s Association and REALTORS. Many of which attend the event.

Rough Hollow is new luxury waterfront community. It is composed of 6 neighborhoods: Enclave, The Villas, Waters Edge, East Rim, The Bluffs and The Overlook. Many homesites offer beautiful hill country and Lake Travis Views. The Yacht Club is just one of the advantages to living in Rough Hollow. This membership includes access to the clubhouse, resort style pool, tram to the marina, coffee bar, deli and much more. 

I am hosting several shifts at 226 Canyon Turn. This home is  built by Copperleaf Property Group and is just over 8100 sq ft of pure elegance. It features over 3000sf outdoor living, 5 bedrooms, 1 is a mini master suite, 1 is a guest quarters with bath. There are 5 full baths with 2 half baths, master bedroom suite has his and her baths, great room, game room/sports bar, study, piano alcove, gallery, wine bar, 4 car garage, and 2 elevators. The home features nothing but the finest in quality doors, cabinetry, granite,and flooring. It has incredible views of the hill country and Lake Travis, with a spectacular pool with island oasis, walkway across pool and spa. The builder also purchaed the 2 adjacent lots bringing the total lot size to 1.4 acres.

Other builders that are showcasing their homes in the Parade are:

Copper Leaf Property Group LLC

Jenkins Custom Homes, Inc.

Sterling Custom Homes
New Austin HomesMcCullogh Gray

In an attemp to help “spread the word” I have cut and paste the following information from:

www. keepaustinaffordable.com 

In early 2007, Austin Mayor Will Wynn released the Climate Protection Plan with the goal of making Austin the “greenest” city in the country. One part of that plan involves a proposed ordinance that would establish mandatory energy efficiency standards for existing homes. The city’s proposal could require that homeowners upgrade their homes and obtain a “Certificate of Compliance” from the city before they’re able to sell it.

We have several important concerns with this plan:

• Affordability – These upgrades could potentially cost Austin homeowners thousands of dollars. This type of out-of-pocket expense will prevent many homeowners from having the option to sell their home, particularly if they need to sell due to a difficult financial situation. In addition, these new costs will inevitably be passed on to homebuyers, making it even more difficult to afford a home in Austin.

• Extended sales process – Arranging the additional inspections needed to obtain a Certificate of Compliance (not to mention actually making the upgrades to your property) would draw out the time required to sell your home substantially. Further, Austin doesn’t currently have enough home inspectors in our city to fill the anticipated demand, promising even further delays.

• Do you want a “license” to sell your home? – As it’s proposed now, this ordinance would essentially require that homeowners apply to the city for a “license” to sell their home (i.e. Certificate of Compliance). Do we want to spend our city’s resources on this activity and add this complication to the real estate process?  Austinites buy and sell more than 25,000 homes each year, so you can imagine the cost and bureaucracy that would be required to manage that type of volume through the city.

Energy efficiency for Austin homes is a great goal, but a mandate is simply the wrong approach.

As most of you already know Concordia University will be closing it’s current location at 3400 N I 35 in the next 90 days according to the information obtained from http://www.concordia.edu/relocation/assets/pdf/Update-22.pdf. It will be relocating to 183/620 area and will sit on over 350 acres. So what will happen to it’s current 22 acre location?

Well……..construction for the 750 million dollar East Ave project is scheduled to start later this year. The urban community project has plans to include 1450 residential units, 600,000 sq ft of office space, and a 250 room luxury hotel. The developer, Andy Sarwel, is hoping it will provide an alternative to the shopping, dining and entertainment to downtown Austin. The exciting part about this project is that it will help in Austin’s goal to becoming the “greenest” city. It will utilize the green building principals through land planning, open space preservation and technology.

 Texas Monthly Magaizine has already signed up to occupy the entire top floor (206,000 sq ft) of an 8 story building. This will be Texas Monthly’s first move since it’s current downtown location in which they have been officing since 1989.

 *Source: Austin Business Journal

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2008/04/28/daily28.html?ana=from_rss

http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2007/06/11/daily14.html?surround=lfn

For more information about the East Ave Project plans please visit www.eastave.net

I attended a great seminar today called Mortgage Market Meltdown. To sum up everything the information that was given to us was that we are going back to the “old fashioned” way of doing loans…..DOCUMENTATION. And you might actually have to have a verifyable source of income.

In the past pretty much anyone with a pulse could qualify for a loan. As a result there are many people who weren’t capable of affording to live in their home in the first place defaulting on their loans thtat they never could afford….leaving our lenders, Wall Street, etc. without excess and in fact a loss of money. They will be lucky if they can recover 30% of each defaulted loan . It is estimated that 25% -40% of all laons were a sub prime loan in 2005-2006. Now that does not mean that ALL sub prime loans defaulted but it is definately an eye opener to how many “unqualified”people were approved for a loan. As a result billions and billions of dollars were lost.

There is acually an up side to this (depending on where you stand).

If have good credit and can verify your income to get approved for a loan then you could possibly qualify for a loan with VERY low interest rates. They are currently at record lows. In addition to low interest rates you have a great opportunity to get an awesome deal on a home. There is a high inventory of homes compared to a realtively low number of qualified buyers. Which means homes are staying on the market a considerable larger number of days. When that happens we call it a BUYER”S MARKET!

They may be attempts to help the mortgage crisis:

Current Legislation on HIll to increase FHA out reach to help with Subprime borrowers.

Current Legislation contemplating increasing Fannie and Frannie loan limits to help with the jumbo borrowers with $625,000 possibly being the new limit.

Educate buyers!!!!!

Second Street seems to be really booming. Over 42 restaurants and stores have opened in the past 2 years. The combined gross sales in 2007 was 25 million which is up  from 16 million  the previous year according to Steve Hallsey, cheif executive of AMLI Managment Company.

It seems that the current retailers are happy with AMLI Managment and that even more retailers are looking to make their place on in the 2nd street district soon. According the Austin American Statesman, Málaga Tapas and Bar is moving from West 4th Street to AMLI’s new building along with other future tenants such as Z pizza and Kirk Furniture.  Next month we should see Taste Select Wines and Beyond Traditions Jewelry housed in  the Computer Sciences Corp building at 2nd and Colorado. Almost all the remining space has been leased out which includes the spaces on the ground floor of the AMLI buildings, City Hall, CSC, and the Silicon Laboratories Inc. buildings. There were a few businesses that shut down but Seely says that it is not uncommon to see especially when they are “start-up” businesses.  They just have a higher risk of failiure.

Overal 2007 homes sales were under compared to 2006 but they were still strong in comparison to past years.

Some stats provided the Austin Board of REALTORS®

25,151 homes were sold in 2007. That is 7% down from 2006

The median home price was $185,ooo in 2007. That is 6% up from 2006.

An Austin REALTOR® explained it well when he  said, “Sales are down a little bit, but it’s like coming off a sugar high. Anything compared to the very best isn’t going to seem as good”.

Not just a great website but another source to verify that we live in a great city.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2006/snapshots/PL4805000.html

Click here to see what the Today Show says about Austin Texas

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&brand=msnbc&vid=71e0105d-a691-4971-95cd-e3c75fc8035f

I will be hosting an open house in Flintrock which is in the lovely hilss of Lakeway.

It is a beautful 5 bedroom home situated on the 13th hole of the Lakeway Golf Course. At close to 3700 sq ft, this home offers luxury at it’s finest. 2 masters suites, spacious living, open kitchen, and saoring ceilings make this truely a wonderful home. The 3 car garage even has a  golf cart door. I hope you will be able to stop by on Sunday Jan. 2oth anytime between 1pm and 4pm.

$837,000

Flintrock Falls offers the amenities of a luxury vacation resort in a private community. For the golf enthusiast, enjoy a round of golf on one of four exceptional Hill Country golf courses, including the only side-by-side Nicklaus courses in central Texas. If you are a tennis buff, partake in a friendly match on one of the 16 tennis courts at World of Tennis. For the water lovers, spend the day on Lake Travis boating, wakeboarding or jet skiing.