Green Houses, The New Real Estate Renaissance?

Green homes!  Okay, okay, maybe you don’t see it clearly right now but you gotta take your thoughts off your gas-guzzling truck or SUV for a moment and see if you can get the correct answer to this question.  Okay, true or false, the average U.S. home causes twice as much greenhouse emissions as a single car.  The answer is True.  No this does not qualify you for are you smarter than a 5th grader! 

According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency, a typical house requires power for heating, air conditioning, hot water and lighting.  that’s enough to cause the emission of three tons of polluting carbon gases each year compared with about 1.5 tons for the typical car on the road. 

Real Estate Market Watch - 2nd Quarter, 2008

U.S. Home Values Dropped Nearly 10% in Q2 Leaving Almost One-Third of Homeowners Who Bought in  the Past Five Years Underwater on Their Mortgages.  One in four homes sold in the past year was for a loss; Foreclosed homes account for 50% of all home sales in some markets, according to Q2 2008 Zillow® Real Estate Market Reports

U.S. home values in the second quarter posted the largest year-over-year decline in the past 12 years, dropping 9.9 percent from the year-ago quarter and 1.7 percent from the first quarter to a U.S. Zillow Home Value Index (HVI) of $206,919, according to the Q2 Zillow Real Estate Market Reports released today. The median U.S. home value has not been this low since the fourth quarter of 2004, leaving nearly one-third (29.1%) of homeowners who purchased since 2003 with negative equity.