LEED for Homes - What is a LEED home?

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a non-profit organization that developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™. In 2008 the USGBC introduced LEED for Homes, a rating system that promotes the design and construction of high-performance green homes. The LEED for Homes rating system uses eight different resource categories to measure the overall performance of a home. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has also developed a green rating system similar to LEED for Homes rating system, but it’s less restrictive and seemingly more accessible to be rated. Both are great systems to assure a properly built house, and time will tell what having two systems competing for attention will bring about.
LEED for Homes uses the following categories for awarding points:

Innovation and Design Process (ID)
The category that includes several types of innovative measures including: special design methods, unique regionally credits, measures not currently addressed in the Rating System, and/or exemplary performance levels.

Location and Linkages (LL)
The placement of homes in socially and environmentally responsible ways in relation to the larger community.

Sustainable Sites
The use of the entire property so as to minimize the project’s impact on the site.

Water Efficiency (WE)
The water conservation practices (both indoor and outdoor) built into the home.

Energy and Atmosphere (EA)
The improvement of energy efficiency particularly in the building envelope and heating and cooling design.

Materials and Resources (MR)
The efficient utilization of materials, selection of environmentally preferable materials, and minimization of waste during construction.

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)
The improvement of indoor air quality by reducing possible air pollution.

Awareness and Education (AE)
The education of homeowner, tenant, and building manager (as appropriate in larger multifamily buildings) about the operations and maintenance of the green features of their LEED Home.

Home Builders Cut Prices, Work Faster

Home builders have lost half their share of the U.S. housing market in the past two years, largely because of competition from cheap foreclosed houses. In 2009 only 7.6% of the homes sold were newly constructed, down from the average of about 16% over the previous two decades.

But home builders are fighting back, cutting prices, promising to complete homes faster, and warning about the risks of buying foreclosed property.

Their efforts may be starting to pay off. On Tuesday, D.R. Horton Inc., the second-largest U.S. builder, swung to a surprise quarterly profit, its first since the sector crashed, aided by improving business and a tax benefit. Donald R. Horton, the builder's chairman, said conditions remain challenging but he's optimistic as Horton focuses on low-priced housing for first-time buyers and controlling costs.
Builders can afford to lower their prices now in part because land is much cheaper. They're also able to squeeze their suppliers and subcontractors harder. Housing starts are running at less than a third of the 2005 level, making suppliers and subcontractors eager for orders and willing to work for less.

Builders are also trying to complete homes faster for people who can't wait the typical four to six months required for a new home. A large share of today's buyers are first-timers who want to qualify for a federal tax credit that expires April 30.

Special deals are also helping builders. Lancaster, Pa.-based Charter Homes & Neighborhoods offered 30-year mortgage rates in January that start at 2.87%, climb to 3.87% in year two, and then settle at 4.87%. In February, the starter rate increased to 2.99%, but it's still below current average mortgage rates of 5.10%. "People are definitely responding," says Rob Bowman, Charter's president.

In Las Vegas, Pardee Homes is using email blasts to tell potential home buyers about possible hazards of buying foreclosed homes. Banks are sometimes slow to respond to would-be buyers' offers, they warn, and former owners have often neglected or even trashed the houses. "Unapparent damage may include leaking water, rot, asbestos or rodent infestations," a Pardee email says.

Some buyers are also starting to suffer from "foreclosure fatigue," says Klif Andrews, Pardee's Las Vegas division president. as it gets more difficult to compete with cash-rich investors for foreclosed houses.

Still, in some cases the lure of real or imagined bargains remains strong. Jim and Penny Seawards used to buy a new home each time they moved. But in their most recent search, concluded in December, they looked only at recent-vintage foreclosed houses. "We felt we could get more house for the money," says Mr. Seawards, the sales director at a Cadillac dealer.

The couple bought a 3,600-square-foot house in Scottsdale, Ariz., for $425,000. They expect to spend $50,000 more on landscaping and other improvements, but their real estate agent, Jim Sexton of Russ Lyon Sotheby's International Realty, figures a similar newly built house would have cost at least $625,000.

Some home owners avoid new homes for other reasons. Lew Reich, an agent with Keller Williams Realty in Plano, Texas, says buyers are sticking closer to downtown Dallas and the city's established suburbs, eschewing lengthy commutes. They also worry that some home builders won't stay in business long enough to finish construction or honor their warranties.

Economists expect the foreclosure crisis to drag on for at least a few more years. So can home builders get back to their former pace of accounting for one of every six sales?

"I think we will get back there," says Bernard Markstein, an economist at the National Association of Home Builders, but, he says, it will take a few years. The NAHB forecasts that new home sales will jump 38% to 517,000 this year as the economy improves. But that would still be only about 9% of expected total home sales.

Perspective is Everything

Digital images give home buyers a vivid new perspective

Can you know what it feels like to stand in a house without actually standing in it? Can a computer-generated image of an interior that includes every detail, right down to the high-heeled shoes on the floor of a dressing room where the imaginary owner kicked them off, truly convey a sense of place?

These are not theoretical questions. As computer-generated virtual-reality images of homes become less costly to generate, many in the home-building industry expect them to play a central role in the buying experience.

If the two virtual-reality houses I saw at the International Builders Show last month in Las Vegas are any indication, the quality of the presentation will vary, and your reaction will depend on where you are in the buying process -- just beginning your search and surfing the web to learn about builders and locations, or seriously interested in a specific house and in pursuit of details about the finished product. Here's my take on two virtual presentations at the builders show: Builder magazine's "Builder Concept Home 2010: A Home for the New Economy" and the National Council for the Housing Industry's "New American Home 2010."

For the prospective buyer who's deciding which new-home communities to visit, the council's 1 1/2 -minute video provides just the right amount of information to pique interest. It shows only six of the 14 rooms in this 6,800-square-foot house, but the images are so detailed that , most viewers will think they are real. Buyers will find it easy to make the mental leap and imagine themselves walking behind the camera crew filming onsite RM Design of Bartlett, Ill., achieved such hyper-realism in part by incorporating the most minute detail of every material in the Las Vegas house (for example, the ridges on the roof tiles); a site-specific quality of light (the brilliant desert sun really does gives everything outside a washed-out look while colors in the shaded interiors are highly saturated); the climate (with little annual rainfall, most palm tree leaves in Las Vegas are covered with grit); accurate sun angles (rays of sunlight pouring through some windows become distorted as they hit different shapes of furniture); mirrored reflections on the windows as the camera takes you on a stroll around the exterior; and subtle signs that someone lives there, such as fish swimming in the large tank tucked into a niche above the living room fireplace.

By the end, I could navigate through the house with my eyes closed, but these computer-generated images did not give me a sense of what it would feel like to be in the house or how I would feel about 1,770-square-foot size. Would a king-size bed fit in the master bedroom? For the casual visitor, this virtual tour is overkill, but if I became seriously interested in buying this house, such information would be invaluable. To be fair, the site was created for home builders, not the general public.

Judged in terms of design and not the presentation, however, Builder's modest but flexible house can meet the needs of many households, and it may mark the beginning of a suburban home-building renaissance.

Designed by architect Marianne Cusato, it is a 2010 adaptation of a modest cottage-style house that was built all over the American East and Midwest from about 1860 to 1930. The traditional two-story cottage-style house has a first-floor living-dining room with a kitchen opening off one end, and three bedrooms upstairs. Cusato's version includes a second full bathroom on the second floor; a first-floor powder room; and, off the back, an "adaptable suite" with a third full bath, two walk-in closets and a separate entrance.

That suite can function as a master bedroom for parents with older kids, or as a family room, a grandparent suite or a separate apartment. If the family's finances go south, the adaptable suite could be rented as a studio apartment. (One closet has plumbing rough-ins for a kitchenette.)

A space on the second floor is also adaptable. In the basic house it is simply unfinished storage, but it could become a fifth bedroom, a sitting room for the master suite, a nursery for very young children or a home office. Finishing this space adds another 230 square feet, bringing the total for the house to 2,000 square feet.

From a marketing perspective, Cusato's design would suit a number of household types, and such broad appeal will certainly interest home builders. .

How much will Cusato's small house cost? A builder in upstate New York who is building two has said his costs are coming in at about $85 a square foot without a basement, according to Cusato. This works out to about $170,000 with a finished second-floor attic but doesn't include the land cost. This version, however, may be a plain one with limited appeal.

Home buyers who are interested may insist on upscale accessorizing. They may agree with Cusato that the era of the huge McMansions with their "lawyer foyers" and unused rooms is over and embrace the idea of smaller houses with flexible floor plans. But it's not clear that they are ready to give up granite countertops, upgraded appliances with stainless steel fronts, triple crown moldings, custom cabinetry and all the other must-haves that can quickly drive up a price.