THE POWER OF GREEN
Welcome to Green Fest 2014 this Saturday, June 14th, from 1pm-5pm.
www.pjgreenfest.com

It is my privilege and honor to chair our 6th Annual Green Festival at the beautiful harbor front Village Center on behalf of the Greater Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce.
Since real estate is my passion, I want to emphasize the power of green as I see the future of housing with a greater focus on energy efficiency. More and more of my clients are seeing the benefits of natural gas, radiant heat, low emission windows. They are selecting more efficient heating, cooling systems. Tankless water heaters are becoming more popular, as well as geothermal heat pumps. Even new toilets have redesigned bowls and tanks that use less water but function more efficiently. It’s all about saving our environment and our pockets!
Some lenders are beginning to add value to homes with energy efficient improvements such as solar panels and tankless water heaters. The Appraisal Institute recently published “Residential Green Valuations Tools,” which offers an overview of the valuation of high-performance homes, which is currently a growing market. In some parts of the country homes with energy efficient items sell at a 10-20% premium when compared to traditional homes in a similar market. I certainly believe this trend will spread to other states over the next few years. Start with minor upgrades, including Energy Star appliances, LED bulbs, programmable thermostats and weather stripping. They are already receiving consideration in market valuation.
In the commercial real estate sector, the push to encourage green building practices has become one of the most exciting things to occur in property development and management – and this is made all the more enjoyable because it is entirely driven by the commercial real estate world itself, without any government oversight or tax money being used to arm-twist this sector into going green.
I strongly believe energy efficiency is a great selling point in today’s housing market. Hey, if a house can sell at a 10% to 20% premium against neighboring properties due to energy efficiency treatments, that seems like a great argument for going green. A win-win situation for our industry, and for all!
A great big thanks and appreciation to all vendors, sponsors, volunteers, our hometown TBR newspaper, our tireless Director of Operations, Barbara Ransome, and our great village, without whom Green Fest 2014 could not have been possible!
“You Must Be The Change You Wish To See In The World”
Your Green-Minded Realtor,
Jolie Powell