Consumers everywhere value eco-friendly products and services more than ever, and government initiatives encourage them. Once a niche segment, green real estate could dominate the market in the near future.

The real estate industry is ripe for change when it comes to sustainability. Buildings account for 39% of total energy consumption in the United States. Eco-friendly technologies are also more affordable than ever, so green building is no longer inaccessible.

From sustainable building materials to renewable energy, green building is shaking up the real estate market. Here’s a closer look at how it will change the face of the industry.

Lower Lifetime Ownership Costs

One of the most impactful changes this green trend will have on real estate is declining ownership costs. Not long ago, sustainability was prohibitively expensive, but things have changed. Wind and solar power are now cheaper than fossil fuels in most of the world.

Buildings with built-in solar panels or wind turbines will provide residents with more affordable energy. These features may make some properties more expensive upfront, but lifetime ownership costs will be lower. This affordability will attract new homeowners, leading to more sales and making housing more accessible.

Green building materials can further lower costs by making buildings more energy-efficient. Traditional fiberglass insulation allows 30% of heat and air conditioning to leak out, but foam insulation is far more efficient. These materials keep more air in, lowering heating and cooling costs and making homes even more affordable.

More Independence

Another advantage of built-in renewable energy generation (such as geothermal energy) is that it gives property owners more independence. Solar panels and wind turbines allow residents to get some or all their power from the environment, not utility companies. In addition to the savings this entails, it gives building owners freedom from the power company.

A recent survey shows that just 33% of American consumers trust their utility companies to offer fair rates and services. That means two-thirds of Americans feel suspicious over whether these organizations have their best interest at heart. Green real estate prevents them from supporting businesses they don’t trust.

When building owners don’t have to rely on utility companies, they can avoid contracts and other limits. Residents will have more flexibility, which is especially important in commercial buildings since businesses likely have higher ambitions than average homeowners. Utility companies limit expansion, but renewables remove those limits.

Higher Diversity of Materials

Most traditional buildings stick to just a few materials like concrete, wood, brick and steel. The sustainable real estate movement opens up a world of new green building materials that buyers can choose from. Many of these also come with benefits that go beyond eco-friendliness.

Some waxes, for example, have natural hydrophobic properties, making walls and ceilings more resistant to water damage. Similarly, wool insulation is naturally flame-resistant and offers similar if not higher thermal properties to traditional insulation. Many sustainable building materials are synthetic, too, so new options emerge all the time.

High-tech materials are a blossoming and promising part of the industry. For example, smart glass changes its thermal properties based on heating and cooling trends in the building. With such an abundance of different materials, green homes can appeal to far more market segments, meeting a diverse public’s diverse needs.

Stronger Emphasis on Green Certifications

Green certifications will become more valuable to consumers. Real estate agents can pursue these benchmarks to make their properties more appealing to potential buyers. Before long, these certifications will be so vital they’ll be less of a competitive edge and more of a necessity.

People want sustainability, even if they have to pay more for it. More than 50% of Gen Z consumers, who will make up an increasingly high percentage of homebuyers, will pay more for sustainable goods.

Green certifications let real estate agents prove to prospective buyers that they’d be purchasing a sustainable home. The rising demand for sustainability will likely also lead to greenwashing and false promises too, making these certifications more valuable. As these trends continue, far more buildings will pursue these benchmarks to meet market demands.

New Construction Opportunities

As the green real estate market continues to soar, construction companies will have an abundance of new opportunities. While homeowners can retrofit existing buildings with sustainable technologies and materials, an entirely green home typically requires a whole new structure. Rising demand for green houses will give construction firms plenty of potential projects.

The U.S. housing market is already worth $33 trillion, and the demand for green homes will push it further. Since retrofitting can only go so far, real estate agents will have to turn to making and selling new buildings. The green revolution could lead to a considerable uptick in demand for construction as a result.

Demand for new construction projects will shift. Construction firms that embrace green building techniques and sustainable certifications will be far more valuable in the coming years. As the real estate market becomes greener, so too will construction.

Green Real Estate Is the Future

Not long ago, sustainable real estate was an expensive and niche market segment, but it’s becoming the norm. Environmental issues are more prominent than ever, driving consumers to demand sustainability in all areas of their lives. This trend shows no signs of slowing, either, so it will transform industries going forward.

Green real estate helps the industry become more eco-friendly and makes it more profitable. Sustainability is changing the face of the sector, making it more appealing to young consumers. When construction and real estate go green, everyone involved benefits, and this mutual growth is driving change in the industry.

The post How Green Buildings Will Change Real Estate Expectations appeared first on Green Building Insider.

Fortunately, the government is introducing some new policies to encourage sustainable living in the coming years. This will encourage more people to practice sustainable lifestyles. Many of them are investing in new technologies to make their homes eco-friendlier.

Are you looking to make your home more energy efficient? Perhaps you’d like to pay for insulation, or invest in double glazing for your windows and doors?

If you have already been trying to reduce your bills and carbon footprint by turning down your thermostat, washing your clothes at a lower temperature, and turning off the tap when you don’t need the running water, then that’s a great start. However, if you’re a homeowner or residential landlord, you can now apply for a Green Homes Grant voucher, which you can use towards the cost of installing energy efficient improvements to your home.

What is the Green Homes Grant scheme?

The Green Homes Grant is a government scheme that offers vouchers up to the value of £5,000 to help homeowners like you make green home improvements.

What home improvements apply?

The voucher that you will receive from the government must be used towards installing at least one primary measure. It is meant to inspire many residents to move towards greener buildings. These primary measures include under-floor insulation, cavity wall insulation, flat roof insulation, solid wall insulation and insulating a park home, plus others. Low-carbon heating measures are also covered by the voucher and include the likes of a ground-source heat pump, biomass boiler and solar thermal.

If you use the grant to install at least one primary measure, your voucher can also be utilised to help pay for the cost of any of the following secondary measures: double glazing on windows and doors, a new hot water tank thermostat and heating controls.

Home improvements don’t come cheap, so if you’re looking to make huge changes to your household and know that the grant won’t cover all the costs, ensure that you have carefully considered all your financial options beforehand.

Who’s eligible?

While both homeowners are landlords are eligible, newbuild domestic properties and non-domestic properties such as offices and shops are not. You may be eligible if you live in England and own your home, or if you own your own park home on a residential site.

If you’re a residential landlord in the private or social rented sector – including local authorities and housing associates – you will be able to apply, too.

If you’re a low-income household, you may be eligible to receive up to £10,000 towards home improvements, and you won’t have to contribute anything to the cost.

When is the deadline?

All individuals that are eligible must redeem the voucher and ensure home improvements are completed by March 31, 2022.

How to apply for the green home grant

Before you apply, it’s important to check that you’re eligible to receive the voucher. Following on from that, you can check what energy-efficient or low-carbon heat improvements might be suitable for your home, before finding a certified installer to carry out the work. Then you can go ahead and apply for the voucher.

Make the Most of the Green Home Grant

You can do a lot to make your home more sustainable. The Green Home Grant can be very beneficial. You just have to make sure that you invest in it it appropriately.

The post Exploring the Nuances of the Promising Green Homes Grant appeared first on Green Building Insider.

You can also make your own home more sustainable by following the latest movements in green construction. Here are six green construction design trends you can use to make a new home more eco-friendly:

1. Solar-Powered and Off-The-Grid Homes

Home solar systems have become a lot more powerful over the past few years. New tech — like home battery systems — means you can run your home almost exclusively on local solar power.

If you stay connected to the grid, you can sell any excess power you generate back to your energy company. You can also detach from the grid entirely and make your home self-powered. However, you’ll need a powerful and durable battery setup to keep your home powered when the solar panels aren’t collecting energy.

2. Tiny Homes

The small size of the average tiny home offers significant environmental benefits for homeowners. These houses don’t use nearly as much building material as normal-sized residences require. They’re also much cheaper to heat and cool. If you want to spring for energy-saving insulation, you won’t have to use nearly as much as you normally would. Energy costs, in general, will also be a lot more manageable.

Tiny homes are often a prime choice for people who want an off-the-grid house. It’s much easier to power a house that’s only a few hundred square feet than an average-sized home.

Tiny homes are affordable, too — some of the cheapest ones cost less than $10,000 to build. They’re also very mobile. Moving a normal-sized house is a major undertaking. A tiny home, by comparison, is easy to ship across the country. Often, tiny homes are designed to allow you to hitch one to a truck and tow it wherever you’re headed.

3. Smart Homes

Smart home tech consists of devices like thermostats and home assistants that connect to the internet to share data. They can all help you cut back on your home’s resource usage. Smart thermostats can intelligently adjust the temperature and connect with home assistants, like Amazon Alexa or Google Home, making it possible to change the temperature with just your voice.

Smart energy and water monitors can help you track how much electricity and water your home uses at different times of the year. This ability allows you to identify when you’re using more resources than normal.

Some of these smart home systems can even intelligently adjust your resource usage for you. Smart thermostats, for example, can automatically turn off the heat when a home security system detects no one is home — even if you forget to set the thermostat before you leave.

4. Green Home Materials

Using recycled or energy-efficient materials can go a long way in making a house more eco-friendly. This trend can also lend it an interesting design flair that you wouldn’t get with standard building materials. Home designers have honed in on three green materials in particular:

1. Deconstructed materials: These are home materials like reclaimed brick, wood paneling and flooring that are salvaged from other construction projects. Often, these supplies are sturdy, unique and more interesting than most materials you’d find for sale in a home design catalog. With deconstructed materials, you also avoid worrying about the environmental impact of harvesting new resources.
2. Aluminum: This metal is 100% recyclable, making it a popular choice for eco-friendly designers. The material is also strong, highly resistant to corrosion and lightweight — making it a versatile metal that can serve well in many different construction projects.
3. Bamboo: Designers agree that bamboo is one of the most eco-friendly building materials out there. Because bamboo regenerates quickly — with some species growing up to 35 inches in 24 hours — it’s much more sustainable than other woody materials. And unlike other fast-growing and sustainable building supplies like hemp, bamboo is tough, with a great strength-to-weight ratio and serious durability.

5. Prefabs and “Cargotecture”

Prefab is short for “prefabricated.” These houses are constructed off-site and then shipped to a construction site in pieces, where workers reassemble them. These prebuilt homes are extremely resource-efficient. And because the construction only involves reassembling the already-built house, building a prefab home also decreases construction time significantly. Shortening construction time can reduce the risk of erosion and other serious environmental impacts that this industry poses.

“Cargotecture” is a similar idea. These are buildings consisting of used cargo containers, and this architectural movement offers a way of reusing millions of storage units sitting empty in global ports. These containers remain where they are because it’s often too expensive to return them to their port of origin.

Homes built out of shipping containers are remarkably eco-friendly because the home structure contains 100% recycled materials. Like prefab houses, cargo container homes are low-cost and quick to build — all construction crews need to do is assemble them on-site.

6. High-Efficiency Windows

Traditional windows are typically energy inefficient — to the point where 25% to 30% of residential heating and cooling energy usage is due to windows. Usually, this has meant that if you wanted big statement windows in any part of your house, you would have to balance looks against the extra power you’d use on heating and cooling. If you wanted to create the most energy-efficient residence possible, large windows were a no-go.

New window construction design trends have changed this. High-performance window glazing, thermally broken frames and smaller mullions have made massive windows as eco-friendly as standard-size ones. Even if you don’t want to go bold with your design, upgrading to high-efficiency windows can help you cut down on heating and cooling costs — making your house a little more sustainable.

Improving Sustainability With Green Home Design

New green design trends are making it easier than ever to build a sustainable home. Improved solar-powered systems, new prefabs and green building materials can all construct a house with a minimal environmental impact.

These trends will likely become more popular and effective over time. New green tech — like improved solar batteries — is always in the works and might make homes even more sustainable in the future.

The post Green Home Design Trends You Need to Know appeared first on Green Building Insider.