My 1981 Mortgage Payment Tables: They Help Explain Why Now May Be the Opportunity of a Lifetime for Homebuyers

If you’ve read my previous blog postings at http://seawrighthomes.blogspot.com/ you’d have noticed that a number of them deal with the subject of home “value,” and how it is the product of much more than a home’s “initial purchase cost.” A high performance home, though costing initially more than its opposite (one of low-performance), typically will prove to be the best “value” because the high performance home will produce the lowest “total cost of ownership” over the planned period of ownership.

A Double-digit Rate of Return in This Economic Climate?

Are you so financially secure that you can’t be bothered by A NO RISK, DOUBLE-DIGIT, GUARANTEED rate of return? If your answer is “yes,” congratulations! You are part of the “lucky gene pool.” If not, and you live in a home built prior to 1990 and have not commissioned an Energy Audit of your home, then what are you thinking!?

The HERS Index Made Easy

No, a HERS Index number is not a reflection of how much of a home’s closet space is occupied by women’s clothes. Nor is it a gauge of femininity.

“HERS” is short for Home Energy Rating System. As explained in Wikipedia, a HERS Index number is a relative energy use index making possible energy consumption comparisons among homes built during different years, with different building components and methods and governed by different, ever-evolving building codes. Just as EPA Estimated Mileage Ratings for all types of vehicles facilitate fuel efficiency comparisons, HERS Index numbers enable the relative energy efficiency of different homes to be compared.

How to Recognize a “High Performance Home”

Two homes appear outwardly identical, but one home is described as a “high performance home”. How can you recognize when the “high performance” claim is justified? The answer to that question is found in the aphorism, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” It’s what is inside that counts.

Foreclosure Statistics…The Bottom Line

As President of the Frederick County Builders Association (FCBA), I recently was asked about expectations that foreclosure statistics, while lower than 2010, are expected to rise because the restrictions on foreclosures caused by “robo-gate” are being cleared. Here are my comments:

• It should come as no surprise that with “robo-gate” drawing to a close, the removal of impediments to foreclosure could result in a bulge of foreclosure sales coming into the re-sale market.

So, Why is it That…

When most people are looking to purchase an appliance, consumer electronics or a car they think “New”, but when looking for a home, they think “Used/Previously Existing/Previously Owned”? One inescapable conclusion is that we homebuilders who build high performance homes have done an exceedingly poor job of informing homebuyers that today’s new, high performance home and even today’s new home built to current code is not, as once was said, “…your father’s Oldsmobile”.

Home Value: How Do You Know it When You See it?

It seems obvious. Every homebuyer’s goal should be to obtain the best value for his/her money. But, “value” itself is a relative concept represented by the relationship between the desired features and benefits of a product or service and the cost associated with those features and benefits.

Approach Buying Your Next Home Like a Smart Car Shopper

In thinking about how well-informed, smart car shoppers compare with most home shoppers, it occurs to me that too many home shoppers have much to learn from smart car shoppers. And this is especially true in a market where too many prospective homebuyers and real estate agents appear unduly pre-occupied with short-sales and foreclosures.