How To Re-Energize Home Sales

Long ago I was a part owner of a company that produced dual-fuel vehicles -they could run on either gasoline or propane with the flip of a switch. We did a lot of fleet conversions and we even supplied fuel for a number of apartment buildings. I also used to write about energy and have been lucky enough to visit an underground uranium mine in New Mexico, live on an off-shore oil production platform south of Louisiana, see coal mining sites in Kansas and Colorado, visit a nuclear fuel fabrication plant in California, see shale oil in Colorado, look at experimental nuclear reactors (they're sort of like deep hot tubs), and so forth.

ENERGY PRODUCING PROPERTIES

I bring up this history for a simple reason: We need to re-start the American
economy. One step among many would be to make every house, apartment, building and office structure not just energy efficient, but energy producing. The technology is out there today to do just that. Instead of massive projects, think smaller and in terms of millions of installations.

We could employ a lot of people in every state and in every community. At the same time we could also increase the value of our housing stock, do a lot of good for the economy and also cut our dependence on foreign oil - a dependence which drains our bank accounts and demolishes our political independence.

WHAT CAN BE DONE

Newer homes - and retro-filled older ones-give some sense for what can be done. As one example, our 40-year-old furnace finally gave out. The new sytem will cut our healing and air conditioning bill by about a third. No less important, it's better. We now have a programmable thermostat. The temperature moves up and down during the day as our needs change.

When the temperature in the house needs to be adjusted the system doesn't just go full blast, it instead selects the most energy efficient approach to get the job done. Add in better insulation, modern windows and doors, fuel-efficient appliances and more efficient toilets and you not only cut energy bills and water usage, you reduce the need to build new power plants.

Saving energy ought t0 be encouraged but it's only half the equation. The other half is this: Every home, apartment building and office complex should be seen as a source of energy production. We already have a number of homes where owners have installed various devices which allow them to lower electric usage and in some cases to feed energy back to the power grid.

We need to go further and make these pioneering efforts commonplace. A smart example of what can be done comes from Brookfield Homes. It has properties available right now, today, that benefit from solar, geothermal and wind energy. (See: http://www.
brookfieldblue.com ). Heat from the sun can be used to heat water (a huge energy cost) and also to convert it into electricity. Geothermal power to heat and cool a property can be extracted from the ground.

A simple and small turbine can produce electricity from wind. No less important, the time has come to recognize that vast homes with more square footage than a polo field are out. Times change. No one is making cars with fins. TVs with tubes or telephones with dials.

With better designs and more efficiency, smaller homes, say 1,200 to 1,600 square feet, can make great sense, especially since they're most likely to comply with Miller's First Rule of Real Estate: Never buy a home you don't want to clean.

It costs money to install or retro-lit energy generation systems, but it also costs money if you don't. As our newly elected President says, we need new ways of doing business and that includes real estate.

BROKER SUPPORT

Brokers ought to support the move not just to green homes, but to energy generating homes. The reason? Better inventory to sell. A new reason to stoke demand.

• Homes which are objectively better for the country.
• Homes which will lower gas prices by reducing overall energy demand.
• Homes which sell because they're cool, sexy, in, green and politically correct.

Look toward the future and think about the new generation of cars being produced. Some experimental models are now getting 100 MPG. That's done by combining gasoline engines with electric generators and batteries. We'll be using gasoline for decades because the distribution infrastructure is already in place. But so is the distribution infrastructure for electricity. A car that gets 100 miles per gallon is great, a car that gets 100 miles per gallon and uses free fuel from home is a technology that's long overdue.

MONEY WELL SPENT

While few of us have the ability to dig an oil well in our backyard, it's a fairly simple matter to hook up a small wind turbine or to add a few solar cells. Given the benefits, it's money well spent.