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Obama Wants More Info About a Home's Energy Efficiency

  • April 13th 2009

by Mark Wellborn

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Obama Wants More Info About a Home's Energy Efficiency: Figure 1

The Washington Post’s longtime real estate columnist Kenneth Harney had a great article in Saturday’s paper about the Obama administration’s efforts to give homebuyers more information on the energy efficiency of the properties that they are considering buying.

In the article, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan says that the agency is working to develop a scoring system that would “allow you to understand [the energy efficient aspects] of what you’re buying and at the same time allow lenders to underwrite that into their mortgage.”

From The Post:

“Mortgage terms — higher loan amounts for buyers to make energy-conserving improvements, lower mortgage rates for energy-efficient homes – ‘can be a very powerful tool’ in residential energy conservation, he said, and the booming Federal Housing Administration insurance program would be a good place to start. ‘If in the long run there’s a cost of $5,000 to upgrade a house that will produce $10,000 in savings over time for utilities, the perfect tool to realize those savings is a mortgage,’ Donovan said.”

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/obama_wants_more_info_about_a_homes_energy_efficiency/791.

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