Home of your green dreams

Real estate agents get eco-friendly training, help buyers and sellers find ways to live sustainably
By Christian Toto
Special to The Denver Post


Highland resident Lindsey Kruger knows a thing or two about living green.

The 29-year-old works in sustainable interior design, but she still is grateful she turned to a real estate professional who specialized in environmental concerns before buying her home.

Today's real estate agents are boning up on how they can merge their real estate savvy with the latest green innovations. "EcoBrokers" or Realtors with a "Green Designation" can help homeowners tweak properties to attract environmentally focused buyers or even connect homebuyers with resources to make their new homes more environmentally friendly.

The EcoBroker Kruger chose, Brad Sandler of Green Door Living in Denver, "steered me to people who would do work on my house in a sustainable way," she said.

Kruger installed bamboo floors, the material is known for its rapid growth, and added enough insulation to shrink her energy bills dramatically.

Evergreen-based EcoBroker International started instructing real estate professionals in the latest environmental stewardship techniques in 2002.

Green mission
John Beldock, EcoBroker president and chief executive, said his group has since grown to more than 5,000 members worldwide.

Members must take three days of classes to complete their certification and then four additional hours each year to retain their status.

Part of the EcoBroker's mission is to make sure clients can afford to go green. Members advise buyers and sellers toward the latest rebates, grants and other monetary incentives, Beldock said.

Lara Williams, a Fort Collins-based EcoBroker, said EcoBrokers must get to know the different grants and program available in their own backyards, such as a Fort Collins program encouraging homeowners to trade in their old porcelain toilets for water-saving models. The toilets are recycled by a local nonprofit for no charge and crushed and combined into an aggregate used as road base.

Williams said local buyers and sellers often look to her to help reduce their carbon footprint. "Now, that's taking a back seat to the energy-efficiency side of it," she said.

Real estate agents can opt to study with the EcoBroker program or take classes with the National Association of Realtors. That group began offering its own Green Designation program last year, according to Kristen Short, managing director of business specialties for the trade group.

Realtors must complete 18 hours of training to gain the certification. The Green Resource Council confers the designation, Short said.

The designation helps Realtors understand what makes a property green, and they can inform clients of both the costs and benefits of green building features. Realtors with the green designation can also tap a network of peers, from contractors to homebuilders, who work with sustainable techniques.

"What does sustainability mean in real estate? Smart growth, new urbanism, a more focused look at green consumers," she said.

Steven Caplan, an EcoBroker and green builder based in Boulder, said the environmental real estate field experiences daily technological advances. That means even EcoBrokers must diligently follow industry trends and stay connected to green builders to be of the most service to their clients.

"The EcoBroker designation, it's just letters. It's about going ahead and taking it to the next level," Caplan said.

Retrofitting advice
Ken Deshaies, an EcoBroker and owner of SnowHome Properties in Silverthorne, said EcoBrokers don't necessarily point homebuyers to the homes of their green dreams. To do so would reduce the number of available homes by a drastic number, Deshaies said.

Instead, they meet the homebuyer halfway, showing them homes that have potential to be upgraded in an environmentally friendly fashion. The same holds true for the sellers.

"I advise sellers how they can green their houses a little bit and showcase the green amenities already in the home," he said.

Sandler said he tries to tell his clients about not just the major renovations needed to go green but the subtle changes to defray energy costs.

He advises installing programmable thermostats, swapping out shower heads for low-flow models and being aware of phantom loads — the energy lost by having electronics and other appliances plugged in around the clock.

His best tip often involves taking an existing home and retrofitting it for maximum green impact. Older homes, with their thick walls and secure structures, offer a pretty good start for would-be retrofitters, he said.

Kruger has a few tips of her own for those seeking out an EcoBroker or green designated Realtor.
"Come up with a few questions to test how knowledgeable they are . . . and make sure they're really good real estate agents," she said.

All the green knowledge in the world won't matter, she said, if they don't intimately know the neighborhoods in question.