Green Real Estate Appraiser

New research sponsored by the Department of Energy shows that buyers are willing to pay more for homes with rooftop solar panels — a finding that may strengthen the case for factoring the value of sustainable features into home appraisals.

Contact the appraisers at www.scappraisals.com, the forerunners in green property/solar appraisals in Southern California.

The study, conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, examined sales data for almost 23,000 homes in eight states from 2002 to 2013. About 4,000 of the homes had solar photovoltaic systems, all of them owned (as opposed to being financed through a lease with the solar company).

Researchers found that buyers were willing to pay a premium of $15,000 for a home with the average-size solar photovoltaic system (3.6 kilowatts, or 3,600 watts), compared with a similar home without one. Put another way, that translates to about four additional dollars per watt of solar power.

Read more at : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/solar-panels-and-home-values.html?_r=0

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

As a homebuyer or seller, do you really understand real estate commissions? Do you know how much a real estate agent who lists a house for sale typically gets? Equally important, how much the agent who brings you in as a buyer gets paid — in other words, how the total commission pie gets sliced up?

You may have heard that the “standard” commission is 6 percent, split between the listing agent and the selling agent who represents the buyer. A portion of the agents’ splits then goes to the brokerage under whose banner they work. But 6 percent isn’t the real number. The average commission rate nationwide on home sale transactions hasn’t been 6 percent since 1992, when it was 6.04 percent, according to Real Trends, an industry publishing and consulting firm that obtains confidential transaction data from brokerages annually. In 2005, at the height of the housing bubble, it was 5.02 percent and in 2013 it was 5.38 percent.

Why bring this up? A controversy over disclosure of commission rates in listing contracts erupted in Denver recently, shedding fresh light on what can be a contentious subject, shrouded from public view. The Denver issue: A discount realty firm that offers flat fees — $2,100 to the listing agent, $3,000 to the agent who brings in the buyer — broke ranks with industry practice by publishing the commission percentages promised to buyer agents in listing agreements. Key details of listing agreements are available online to realty agents who are members of the local multiple listing service, or MLS, but not to the general public. In Denver, as in many other areas, MLS rules prohibit disclosure of the commission rates offered to agents working on behalf of buyers.

read more at: http://www.columbian.com/news/2015/mar/02/6-home-sales-fee-isnt-sacred/

disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only