Niche market has agents seeing green

Programs certify real estate brokers selling eco-friendly homes

By Rebecca Ragain

Pamplin Media Group, Dec 11, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Sean Sullivan, project designer for Dolph Creek Townhomes, gives real estate agents a green-roof tour. The site visit was part of last month’s Earth Advantage program for agents seeking knowledge about green building features.

L.E. BASKOW / PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP

ADVERTISEMENTS

With the most registered LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) projects per capita of any city in the United States, Portland is big on green building.

Commercial green buildings like the Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center and the Gerding Theater at the Armory attract a lot of attention, both nationally and locally. But for the average home buyer, it can be confusing to figure out exactly how the green building buzz translates to the residential market.

Where do you start if you want to buy a house that will be appropriate for solar panel installation? Or if you have chemical sensitivities and need a home with high indoor air quality? What if you value sustainable building materials such as bamboo or cork flooring?

People who want assistance buying or selling a home with green features can turn to specially trained real estate agents for one-on-one guidance.

These agents have invested time and money to learn about sustainable living and green building, and have the certification to prove it. Here in Portland, green real estate agents are most likely to be certified by one of two programs, or sometimes both.

Colorado-based EcoBroker International (www.ecobroker.com) has certified approximately 1,700 agents throughout the United States and Canada since 2003.

About 60 certified EcoBrokers do business in Oregon, according to the company’s Web directory, about half of whom are based in the Portland metro area. By comparison, Colorado and California are each home to nearly 200 EcoBrokers, whereas some states have only a handful or none at all.

To earn designation as an EcoBroker, licensed real estate professionals complete 18 hours of online courses addressing housing-related energy and environmental issues.

A separate program for real estate agents, based locally, is offered by the nonprofit green building organization Earth Advantage, which also certifies new homes and registers remodeled homes that meet its guidelines for energy efficiency, indoor air quality, environmental responsibility and resource efficiency.

Since May, Earth Advantage has been holding a course called Sustainability Training for Accredited Real Estate Professionals, or STAR (www.earthadvantage.com/realtor). To date, 317 people have taken the STAR course; 244 have passed the exam and graduated from the program.

The creation of the STAR program was spurred by a decision made by the Regional Multiple Listing Service, or RMLS, the primary searchable database of Portland-area real estate properties.

In February, RMLS implemented a new feature allowing real estate agents to search online listings for homes with energy efficient and green building characteristics, and to post the same information when they list properties.

“After that happened, it was the right time to go forward,” says Charlotte Willer, STAR’s coordinator. “There was a lot of need for it; people were really verbal about needing some kind of training for Realtors.”

Washington’s listing service, called Northwest Multiple Listing Service, added a green home listing feature in June. Listing services in other parts of the country will implement similar systems soon, according to Kria Lacher, a Portland real estate agent who was instrumental in encouraging the RMLS changes.

Lacher, who is acting as an unpaid consultant to several listing services around the country, says: “This is a national movement, not just an anomaly here. The change is coming.”

Group has a ‘green team’

Portland real estate agents are getting a leg up by enrolling in the STAR and EcoBroker certification programs, which complement each other, rather than compete.

“I’d highly recommend either,” says Lacher, who is certified through both STAR and EcoBroker.

Roots Realty’s Mark Wheeler, who also has completed both programs, says, “You could probably get away with one or the other, but both is probably a more rounded education.”

There is one key difference between the two programs: Whereas EcoBroker’s curriculum aims to appeal to real estate agents anywhere in the country, STAR includes local specifics.

“Green building techniques have to do with different climates. … We really focus on the Northwest and that climate, including moisture issues,” Willer says.

During the two-day STAR workshop, real estate agents get the chance to connect with local experts, and to tour green-built residences in the Portland area.

The local aspect was important to Joe Menashe, managing principal broker with Hasson Co. Realtors, who took the STAR course in August with about 40 other eco-conscious agents from his company’s “Green Team” (hasson.com/green).

1 | 2 Next Page >>