SAVE home energy
ongress is finalizing the SAVE Act after it recently passed the Senate. The act will provide affordable financing for home-energy improvements, reduce utility bills, improve the environment and spark job creation in the housing and energyefficiency industries.
In 2009, when Sen. Michael Bennet cut the ribbon on the first zero-energy home that my company built in the Stapleton neighborhood, he described his proposed SAVE Act (Sensible Accounting to Value Efficiency). Seven years later, the Senate passed it as an amendment to the Energy Bill. It reconciles longstanding inconsistencies in America’s efforts to build better homes at no cost to taxpayers.
The federal government has encouraged builders to construct Energy Star and Zero Energy Ready homes that improve safety, lower energy bills and help the environment. It should come as no surprise that better homes cost more. Many homebuyers just couldn’t afford the added cost. Federal energy policy was improving homes, but federal mortgage policy didn’t keep up.
The SAVE Act gives credit to homebuyers if they choose to buy a better home. Until now, expensive upgrades like granite countertops and three-car garages were easily included in appraisals. Surprisingly, efficiency upgrades were not. Better furnaces, appliances, insulation and solar panels do cost more, but save money immediately through lower monthly utility bills. Since buildings consume 70 percent of the nation’s energy, better homes also have immediate environmental benefit.
The SAVE Act requires that energy saving features of a home be added to the value of appraisals.
In addition, the SAVE Act takes into account lower utility bills when calculating how much monthly payment homebuyers can afford, giving them the buying power to purchase a home that is healthier to live in, cheaper to operate and better for the environment.
The benefits are not just for new homes. People who opted for replacing windows, furnaces or added solar panels to existing homes have had difficulty recouping those costs when they sell their homes later. Appraisers didn’t give value to the improvements and subsequent homebuyers got no credit for the energy savings when qualifying for their new mortgage. Now, with the SAVE Act, they will. Without it, it is difficult to justify improving the millions of existing homes that consume far more energy than newer homes.
Many thanks to the bipartisan efforts led by Sens. Bennet and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., for introducing the SAVE Act and nurturing it these many years. The SAVE Act will create more jobs, save billions in energy bills and improve the environment at no cost to taxpayers.
We look forward to the time when Congress forwards the Energy Bill to the president and the SAVE Act becomes the law of
the land. Gene Myers is CEO of Thrive Home Builders based in Denver.