Love's Real Stories

Are “green” homes worth more? Two high-brow professors did a study to find out. High-brow professors are the people we want doing these studies, but their scientific language can be tough to take, such as: “To empirically test this hypothesis, we relate the logarithm of the transaction price to the hedonic characteristics of single-family homes, controlling precisely for the variations in the measured and unmeasured characteristics of rated buildings and the nearby control dwellings…..”

Translation: the answer is yes. Green homes sell for 9% more than regular homes in California. “Green” means a home labeled as LEED, Energy Star, or GreenPoint Rated.

The study is a 29-page report titled “The Value of Green Labels in the California Housing Market.” The high-brow professors are Nils Kok of UC Berkeley and The Netherlands, and Matthew E. Kahn of UCLA. Both have degrees, accolades, and credentials as long as your arm.

Green homes have benefits beyond energy cost savings, they report, such as more comfortable and stable indoor temperatures and healthier indoor air quality. LEED and GreenPoint Rated homes also feature efficient water use, sustainable non-toxic building materials, and other attributes that reduce impact on the environment.

After the good professors determined green homes are indeed worth more, they asked themselves: What factors influence the value homeowners place on green or energy efficient homes? Hotter climate? Higher electricity prices? Environmental ideology?

The professors found that the premium paid for a home with a green label varies from region to region in California, and is highest in the areas with hotter climates, because the green label means big cost savings in the cooling of a home, more so than the cost savings of efficiently heating a home.

The price premium is also “positively correlated to the environmental ideology of the region.” In other words, the more Prius drivers you see in a given region, the higher the premium you’ll find paid for a green home.

Our region certainly has a hotter climate, but are we seeing a price premium “positively correlated to the environmental ideology” of our region?

Answer: Count the Prius drivers. Then call in the high-brow professors.

Signs of the times: A former Hummer driver, now behind the wheel of a Mini-Cooper; a former Super Store shopper with a devil-may-care budget, now harvesting home-grown produce from their own garden plot; a former mansion owner, now living in a Tiny House.

“Tiny House” isn’t merely a reference to a house that is small; it’s a category, like “Condo”, or “Apartment.” “Tiny House” has become part of the conversation for people looking for affordable real estate, people looking for a scaled-down lifestyle- no gas guzzler, no shopping spree, no wasted living space.

A Tiny House is smaller than a shotgun house, a cabin, or a guest house; smaller than your garage. A Tiny House is so small, as my friend Ken DuVall would say, you have to go outside to change your mind.

A Tiny House is the size of a shed, typically 250 square feet or less. But it has everything. The kitchen is there, the bathroom, the bedroom, the living area. The people who buy, build, and live in Tiny Houses tend to pour their heart and soul and creative flair into their design, construction, and decoration. You have your Cape Cod, your Victorian, and your California Craftsman. You have your high ceilings, your natural lighting, and your energy efficiency. You have your low, low, low, utility costs.

People who buy, build, and live in Tiny Houses tend to say things like, “Living small emphasizes home life over home maintenance.” And “The McMansion way of life is wasteful and expensive. We need to recognize what fills a home when the excess is cut away. Living small can free up your mind, your wallet and your soul.”

Jim and Julie Wrenlich bought a five-acre sloping lot in the California foothills. It has pines, oaks, and manzanita, and came with an old manufactured home. They chose a spot just uphill from the existing homesite and cleared a small area to build their Tiny Home. They built a cabin-design, 220 square feet, tall-ceilinged with a loft, steep roof with green metal roofing and dormer, and a covered front porch and deck. Underneath, between the floor and the sloping ground, is storage.

“We bought the land for $45,000 and built the house for $25,000, including permits and fees,” says Jim. “We sold off the manufactured home for $8,000, so we’re in the whole thing for just over $60,000.” A construction loan paid for the project. “Our payment is lower than our rent was,” says Julie, “and we have a brand new home. We couldn’t afford to buy a regular house, and this is better, anyway.”

Logan and Tammy Strobel live in a to-go version of the Tiny House, 128 square feet on wheels, built on an 8’x16’ trailer. It’s a tall, cedar-sided beauty, fully self-contained, with an alcohol-burning stove, composting toilet, walls insulated with natural wool. “We designed our home”, says Logan, “and it fits us like tailored clothes.” Good thing it’s a to-go version, because it went. They towed their Tiny House from Portland, Oregon to Mt. Shasta in Northern California to be nearer Tammy’s family and her ill father. They parked it on country property owned by family, instantly right at home. A garden hose and an electrical cord from the pump house did the trick for utilities.

The simpler life, the less expensive life; the smaller impact lifestyle: all part of the Tiny House phenomenon. If you’re ready to give up the man-cave and the lady-lair, the maintenance and the bills; the entertainment theater, the bonus rooms and frills; you too can leave a smaller footprint. You could make it Tiny.