'Green' Your Home Well Beyond St. Patricks Day

In March, many Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by attending parties, wearing green clothing, and even bedecking their homes with green shamrock and leprechaun-adorned decorations. With nearly 37 million Americans claiming Irish ancestry (according to Ancestry.com), that’s no surprise. But what may surprise you are the many ways that you can “green” your home that will last well beyond March 17, and save you money on utility bills year-round.

Here are a few recommendations from NAHB Remodelers to home owners who want to increase their home’s efficiency, decrease costs, and take advantage of the other benefits of “greening” your home.  

·      Add insulation

Adding insulation will help save energy costs, increase comfort by better controlling temperature, and improve indoor air quality by eliminating many gaps through which dirt, dust, and other impurities can enter. Insulation is rated by its ability to resist heat flow, known as the “R-value.” The higher the R-value, the better its ability to resist heat flow.

·      Install high-efficiency windows

Ordinary window glass transmits ultraviolet heat rays from the sun into your home. ENERGY STAR-rated windows can help control this. These windows may have two or more panes of glass, warm-edge spacers between the panes, improved framing materials, and microscopically thin metal or metallic oxide layers deposited on windows to reduce radiative heat flow.

·      Seal exterior penetrations

Inspect your home from the inside and outside and plug cracks or openings in order to reduce cold air drafts and heat loss, especially the areas where window frames meet the structure or siding of the house. Use caulking to seal all small cracks on non-moving surfaces and install weather stripping on windows, doors and other movable parts of the home.

·      Replace your appliances with ENERGY STAR-rated ones

ENERGY STAR -rated appliances, ranging from dishwashers and refrigerators to computers and televisions, meet strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the EPA and U.S. Department of Energy. Qualified refrigerators, dishwashers and vent fans use ten to 50 percent less energy and water than standard models, more than making up for the slightly higher costs of these products.

·      Install low-flow water plumbing fixtures

In the average home, flushing toilets accounts for around 30 percent of water usage. By using low-flow plumbing fixtures such as toilets, faucet aerators and showerheads, you can save up to 25 percent of that water compared to conventional fixtures while providing the same utility.

·      Upgrade to an ENERGY STAR-rated or tankless water heater

Tankless water heaters provide hot water on demand at a preset temperature rather than storing it. A low-cost alternative to a tankless heater is to wrap insulation around your conventional water heater, which can reduce standby heat losses 25 to 45 percent.

·      Install a high-efficiency HVAC system

High-efficiency ENERGY STAR HVAC equipment can reduce utilities costs on average by ten to 30 percent over minimum efficiency equipment. It also can improve home comfort with more heating and cooling and a quieter operation, and often features higher quality components that result in longer equipment life.

Not only will green remodeling help you enjoy your home more during the time you live in it, it will make it more attractive to potential buyers when you decide to sell. According to research by the National Association of Home Builders, 72 percent of consumers report energy efficient features in a home would influence their purchase decision.

For more information on green remodeling, visit www.nahb.org/remodel or www.ashevillehba.com

Homeownership Can Bring Big Savings at Tax Time

As the April federal income tax filing deadline approaches, millions of Americans are sitting down and sorting through dozens of forms to determine how much money they owe Uncle Sam – or, how much of a refund they will get this year. One of those forms, the Mortgage Interest Statement Form 1098, can mean big savings for home owners at tax time.

Form 1098, which home owners receive from their lenders, shows the total amount of home mortgage interest paid during the year. Home owners who itemize their federal income tax deductions can deduct 100 percent of their mortgage interest payments on a first or second home for up to $1 million of mortgage debt. They can also deduct the interest paid on up to $100,000 of home equity loans.

For most home owners, this means they can deduct ALL of the mortgage interest they’ve paid on their home each year.

The ability to deduct home mortgage and home equity loan interest isn’t the only tax benefit for home owners.

The three most important sources of tax savings for home owners are:

·      Deductions for mortgage interest

·      Deductions for real estate taxes

·      The capital gains exclusion for the sale of a principal residence

Home owners are also able to deduct the state and local real estate taxes they pay each year on an owner-occupied home.

When it is time to sell a home, in many cases home owners don’t have to pay capital gains tax on the profit from the sale. Under present law, married couples who have owned and occupied their principal residence for at least two of the past five years do not have to pay any taxes on the first $500,000 in profits from the sale of their home. Single filers earn up to $250,000 tax free.

Another deduction home owners may be able to take is for mortgage insurance premiums. Generally, people who purchase a home without putting 20 percent down have to buy mortgage insurance, and those premiums can also be deducted from taxable income.

Even home owners who don’t use the home as their principal residence and rent it out may be able enjoy some tax benefits, including interest and depreciation deductions.

 

Buying a home offers tax savings that can add up to tens of thousands of dollars over several years. Home owners rely on the mortgage interest deduction each year to help offset the costs of homeownership and prospective buyers take the deduction into consideration when choosing homeownership over renting.

But the mortgage interest deduction, which has been included in the tax code for about 100 years, is in danger. A national deficit commission has proposed reducing or eliminating the deduction as part of a restructuring of the tax code.

Find out more about the threat to the mortgage interest deduction, and read “The Tax Benefits of Homeownership,” a study from economists at the National Association of Home Builders that provides specific examples of savings for a variety of income levels and ownership situations, at www.SaveMyMortgageInterestDeduction.com.

Contact the Asheville Home Builders Association to find out about homeownership opportunities in the Asheville area.

Apartment Rent Estimator Shows Value of Specific Amenities

A new estimating tool by NAHB Economics lets builders and prospective renters gauge how much certain amenities add to typical apartment rents across various regions.

In October of 2011, NAHB released an updated version of our statistical model for estimating the average price of a single-family home (see NAHB House Price Estimator, Updated). This week, we followed up with another great estimating tool that's designed to estimate average gross rent for an apartment in a building with five or more housing units. Like the house price model, the NAHB rent estimator is calibrated with data from the American Housing Survey (AHS), a nationally representative survey of housing units conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and funded by HUD. And similar to the house price model, the rent estimator is available online in a form that readers with compatible web browsers and Internet service providers can access and run interactively.

By using the NAHB rent estimating model, builders and prospective renters can get an idea of how the addition of a particular amenity affects the rents charged and paid for similar apartments in the region. Developers looking to expand into other areas and relocating households can use the model to compare rents for a particular type of apartment across broad geographical regions. Owners of rental properties may use it to judge how a particular renovation would tend to increase the rent they could charge. And finally, property owners and local governments may use it to study how neighborhood characteristics impact rents. Below are a few quick highlights of the rent estimator's findings:

* The highest estimated gross rent for a standard new apartment can be found in the metropolitan California region, with the next highest estimated gross rent being found in the Northeast.
* Adding a third bedroom to a standard new apartment built in a Southern suburb adds $78 per month to gross rent, while omitting one of the two full baths found in the study's "standard apartment" reduces gross rent by $73.
* Locating a standard new apartment in a neighborhood with satisfactory shopping, such as grocery stores and drug stores, adds $53 per month to gross rent in a southern suburb.
* The presence of trash or litter in the neighborhood reduces estimated gross rent for the standard new apartment in a southern suburb by $11.
NAHB members can access the NAHB Rent Estimator tool free of charge at: www.nahb.org/rentestimatorreport.

This article was printed with permission from the NAHB