Is Energy Efficiency the New Granite Countertop?

Home builders are beginning to see the attraction of energy efficient design and equipment to buyers and are making them standard features of new homes across the country.

McIlwain looks 10 years into the future and sees that demographic shifts will introduce a generation of more values-driven consumers into the marketplace, which combined with the rising cost of energy, "will lead to homes becoming energy net zero or net plus, linked to the grid and buying and selling as the day goes along. Green will no longer mean being a bit more efficient than before, but will mean that a home uses no net energy (net energy zero) or produces net energy (net energy plus). Homes that still draw all or most of their energy from the grid will see a marked decline in value, just as today's homes that are far from sources of public transit are losing value while homes proximate to transit are holding value."