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With climate change and the rising cost of living a significant concern in Australian households, today’s buyers have energy efficiency and saving money on bills front of mind.
Here are four environmental upgrades you could recommend that sellers implement to make their homes appealing to environmentally mindful buyers.
1. Water efficient fixtures.
If your client is renovating their wet areas or replacing old appliances suggest that they look into water efficient products and fittings.
Australia’s Water Efficiency Labelling Standards (WELS) scheme makes it very easy to save money and help out the environment by comparing and selecting the most water efficient products to suit your needs. WELS uses an easy to understand rating methodology up to six stars. The higher the amount of stars the more energy efficient the product is.
According to waterrating.gov.au installing a standard shower head uses about 15 to 25 litres of water per minute, whereas 3 star shower heads use as little as six to seven litres a minute.
2. Insulation upgrade.
Appeal to buyers by upgrading to special energy efficient insulation. This is one of the quickest ways to improve the energy efficiency of a home and cut the homeowners cooling and heating bills by up to half (yourhome.gov.au). Good insulation helps to minimise the amount of heat entering the home on a warm day at the same time as keeping in heat on a cold one.
The amount and type of insulation buyers should use varies depending on the climate and location of the property. You can check the minimum insulation recommendations from the Australian Building Code Board here.
3. Convert to more efficient lighting.
Recommend that they switch all the lighting in their home to energy efficient light bulbs, such as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), light emitting diodes (LEDs) and fluorescent lights.
According to YourEnergySavings.gov.au lighting consumes between eight to 15 per cent of the average Australian household electricity budget. Most homes could reduce the amount of energy they use on lighting by 50 per cent or higher by switching to more energy efficient technologies.
4. Window coverings.
Another way to insulate a home and make it more energy efficient is to have windows and doors double glazed. Double glazing helps to reduce the loss of heat in winter, and in summer minimises heat from entering the home.
Other less expensive ways to improve energy efficiency of windows in a home is to add window films or tints, fitting black out blinds or shutters.
Be sure to include these eco-friendly features in your listing and advertisements to highlight the new energy efficient improvements that will save the future owners money and energy.
I agree Larissa you sound like you have lived it. Your neighborhood is full of your future clients, the hardest thing is to meet them. Most have probably had at best an indifferent past experience with a real estate agent and to break the ice is not always the easiest thing to achieve. Being a fellow resident in the suburb you work is an advantage and the four scenarios you describe all work well, especially the social media via Homely provided you use it as a resident first and potential Agent Advisor second or even third leg to establishing your relationship. Neighbors need to feel the passion you share with them for your your suburb/business development area. In my experience once a relationship is established as equals it flourishes fast and deeper.
Really interesting to hear about your experiences Ian. Thanks for the comment.
Larissa,
Awesome ideas here. I’m often asked by buyers if the house has solar panels or other power saving devices, if it has an automatic gardening irrigation system or 3 phase power supply suitable for central air conditioning installation. Roof insulation is often completely overlooked as a selling feature by selling agents. It seems the bigger and more expensive the house the more power the family uses and they are quickly becoming aware of the rapidly increasing cost of the energy as their consumption continues to rise. Smart property owners are doing the numbers on roof top solar panels to generate off set electricity to help manage their ever increasing energy costs.
Even gas is now comparably priced and not the energy savior it used to be. It’s definitely a good idea for selling agents to become fully aware of the energy saving features of the homes they are marketing, savvy purchasers are looking for innovation in the new and second hand homes they purchase.
Thanks so much for the detailed feedback Ian. Especially good tip for putting in other power saving devices such as automatic watering. I think buyers are always on the look out for low maintenance gardens as well as ways to save energy.
Every potential savings a client can make on the on-going expense of running a property can make a big difference in the achievable price of your listing. I never underestimate the power of environmental dollar as more and more people can see the long term benefits both for the planet and their wallets.
Thanks for the feedback David. Very true.