The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and McGraw-Hill recently released The Green Homeowner SmartMarket Report, which predicts that the market for “true” green homes will increase from $2 billion to $20 billion in the next five years alone. In the report, a “true” green house is defined as one that contains elements in three of five environmental building categories: energy efficiency, indoor air quality, water efficiency, resource efficiency, and site management.
The report offers several insights into the mindset of the green homeowner and the homeowner remodeler using green products, including the fact that consumers are buying green homes because they are concerned about their families’ health, in addition to wanting to reduce energy and other home operating costs. According to McGraw-Hill’s research, most Americans find out about green homes through word-of-mouth first, followed by television and the Internet. Also, green homeowners are happy with their homes, and they are recommending them at rates significantly higher than recommendation levels of other industries, the report shows.
The report finds that conventional homes are being made more environmentally friendly as homeowners use green products in 40 percent of remodeling work. It also finds that the greatest obstacles preventing more rapid growth in green building are education and lack of homeowner awareness—not the additional costs of building green. However, costs and the availability of green homes are still a challenge once homeowners learn about green building. Read the complete press releases at: www.nahb.org/news_details.aspx?newsID=4304 and www.prnewswire.com.
