A study in The Appraisal Journal found that some sustainable features can increase the sales price by 7.7%. The majority of buyers want houses with sustainable features, according to GenWorth, 72% of First Time Buyers in Canada seek houses with sustainable attributes.
Despite being such a large market, it’s still hard for buyers and sellers to engage with it in a meaningful way. These four steps will help you as a seller.
Becoming a Player in the Sustainable Housing Market
Step 1: Redefine Sustainable housing: not just LEED and windmills
A lot of sales people back down from sustainable homes because their properties don’t have a certain certification, massive windmills in the front yard, or aren’t completely off the grid. Even though those features are exciting and add value to the home, remember that buyers often back down from these flashy features as well. It’s the little things that go a long way in sustainable homes. Some features people often overlook include:
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- Vegetable gardens
- In-floor heating (an incredibly efficient method of heating)
- Greenhouses
- Energy Star appliances
- A well
- Heat pumps
- South Facing Sun Exposure
- Energuide Assessment and Simple Energy Efficient Upgrades
The list of features that make a home more self sufficient is long and buyers are looking for them. Most popular, are the ones that increase energy efficiency, such as good insulation, energy efficient windows and Energy Star appliances.
Step 2: Identify these features on your properties
It is worthwhile to make a checklist of sustainable features on each of your properties. Ask your colleagues to take a look, ask the homeowner to think if there is anything you missed. A smart way to go about identifying your features is asking yourself some simple questions:
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- How does this home use less electricity than the average home?
- Are there areas were water is conserved?
- Is our property efficiently heated?
- How does the property keep heat in?
Step 3: Highlight your features
This is simple, start talking to potential buyers about how the home has sustainable features, how those features help the home be more self-sufficient, and how it can save them money in the long-run. Another great way method is to list on Effprop.com, we will highlight all of your sustainable features, and you can create a quick cheat sheet to help you discuss them.
Step 4: Reach interested customers:
Some surveys put the percentage of buyers who want sustainable features between 62-88%, so the 
majority of home buyers are interested customers. However, a great way to reach these interested customers is listing through Effprop, where people who care about sustainable living are already looking. Another way to reach interested customers is to start telling everyone under the sun that you dabble in sustainable housing, word will travel fast, and you will be a buyers first choice.
With sustainable housing, you’re greener than you think:
When we start thinking in terms of sustainable features of a home, and how we can make a home more self-sufficient, we start to see that sustainability is something that is threaded through a lot more homes than we think. Having a keen eye for these features will launch you into this market, and the beautiful thing is, you don’t have to be an expert on sustainability to get started.