Just when you feel there is little hope about the environment, especially afer I watched “Crude Awakening: the oil crisis”, I found an article that gives excellent stats about green development and conversions in real estate in the U.S. It’s a smart and thoughtful investment. I am on a search for green conversion condos, townhomes and residential homes. Currently, I am marketing Livehistoric.com and one of their conversions which used green materials. If anyone knows of any new or update homes of all kind…please contact me at http://www.think-homes-seattle.com . Enjoy the article!
Grab the ‘green’ real-estate boom By Fast Company If the workplace is any indication, you could almost believe corporate America really cares about the environment. Goldman Sachs (GS, news, msgs), Hearst, IBM Corp. (IBM, news, msgs), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, news, msgs) and Toyota Motor (TM, news, msgs) all have made the move into “green” buildings. Bank of America (BAC, news, msgs) plans to build a 52-story eco-skyscraper near New York’s Times Square, and Accenture (ACN, news, msgs) has leased green office space throughout the country. Sustainable construction is one of the fastest-growing segments of the already-red-hot commercial-building industry. An estimated 5% of all new U.S. commercial construction received the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification last year. And by 2010, 10% of all new commercial construction will be sustainable, according to McGraw-Hill’s (MHP, news, msgs) 2006 Smart Market report. (The green trend in home construction is still in its infancy, although that’s bound to change.)Existing construction is getting an eco-lift too. Developers such as Hines and the Durst Organization, and some real-estate investment trusts (REITs), are snapping up half-empty office buildings and renovating them according to green standards. That can often bring 3% higher rents and a 7.5% increase in a building’s value, according to the McGraw-Hill report. On average, green buildings save 10% of utility costs each year — and sometimes much more. Genzyme’s (GENZ, news, msgs) corporate headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., spends 42% less on energy and uses 34% less water than a similar traditional building would. Even more important, as sustainable materials and technology improve, green construction will become more cost-effective, says Charles Lockwood, an environmental and real-estate consultant in Southern California and New York.
