Do green benefits increase the value of a home?

Is building a home that works with the environment, economical to run and healthy to live in good for resale value?

We’d like to think every dollar spent on our home is returned to us in monetary value at some point. But let’s not forget about the value added to improvement of the family lifestyle and savings made through your new efficient home.

I think the major reason, is to build a home that aligns with the environment it is built in and minimizes it’s impact on our world. Forget about the savings made from being more economical to run, forget about how much of a joy the house is to come home to and forget for a moment, the legacy we are leaving for our children.

A home built to a higher standard of consideration for the environment, is built for the future. People spend 90% of their time indoors and that number is only going to increase with the growing opportunities to work at home and the world being so accessible from our living rooms.

Therefore we are wanting more and more out of our home.

Nobody that spends 90% of their time indoors wants to use mechanical heating or cooling, nobody wants to be paying for energy that is produced in a faraway place that is destroying some beautiful part of our world. No human that is conscious to what is happening in our world wants to be destroying it!

To have the choice between two new homes, one that has been designed with consideration, or the other designed only to please the ego of the recipients with no consideration whether the home will be healthy and economical to live in.

To choose between a home that lets that low winter sun warm the home, has self-sufficient water and power supply, enables those soothing cross –breezes in summer so you can enjoy those gorgeous summer evenings.

Or a home that is dark, draughty and damp. Cold in winter and hot in summer. With minimal foresight for water tanks and no self-reliant energy source.

I know which one I will be choosing!