AGBeat Columnist: Anna Altic
Anna Altic – Village Real Estate Services. I’ve called Nashville home for the last 15 years and have been practicing (practice being the key word here) real estate for just over 6 years. In the fall of 2007, I went to a local German Festival that had a home tour, including a LEED certified property, and I instantly became enamored with the idea of eco friendly living (ok, so I’d had a little beer and the dual flush toilet rocked my world). I have since devoted much of my time and energies in to studying and espousing the benefits of better building technology within our local residential market and my proudest accomplishment thus far has been successfully leading the initiative to get over 25 green features added to our MLS search fields.
Who should be using the New Green Appraisal Addendum
In the fall, I gleefully reported that the Appraisal Institute had created a green addendum to accompany the standard appraisal forms so that appraisers had an official way to evaluate and compare green features in homes. I am not going to spend time in this article discussing what is included in the addendum but here is my original article for ...
Can chicken coops help or hurt the sale of a home?
The property values? One of the first orders of business this year in Nashville’s quest for sustainability, is the urban hen. Currently they aren’t allowed here but there is a chicken ordinance bill working it’s way through City Council as we speak. If you are asking yourself how this pertains to real estate, I’ll tell you there are some freaked out ...
Green real estate trend spotting – homes built with straw?
Maybe the First Little Pig wasn’t so dumb after all This fall I have had the privilege of working with some of Nashville’s most exciting visionaries in planning and hosting Nashville’s first annual Green Homes Tour. While I am happy to discuss with anyone the process of creating this event, what rocked my world was seeing some awesome alternative building materials ...
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Appraisal institute to officially recognize green features
Can I get an Amen? I’ll even settle for a WOOT from all you agnostics. Recently, the Appraisal Institute released this statement about the creation of an optional green features evaluation addendum to Fannie Mae Form 1004 which is the appraisal form used by appraisers for Fannie, Freddie, and FHA. As noted in the release, the contributory value of green ...
Nissan partnering with California builder for Leaf-ready homes
Leaf-ready homes are on the horizon Nissan and City Ventures, a CA green builder, have announced an interesting partnership this month. City ventures will pre-wire 190 of it’s under construction town homes with parking spaces that are ready for level 2 charging stations. What does this mean exactly? As more and more electric vehicles enter the market, owners ...
Great tips for real estate professionals, directly from a green appraiser
The Green Resources Council featured in their monthly newsletter an interview with Sandy Adomatis of Adomatis Appraisal Service in Punta Gorda, Fla who specializes in green appraisals. I found her comments and suggestions to be completely relevant and right on. My big “aha’s” are that anyone having a part in greening their MLS should evaluate how “appraiser” friendly it is. Agents should ...
Have you visited GreenTowns?
This Site Rocks! I stumbled in to GreenTowns.com thanks to the Green Resources Council and am thrilled to be sharing a fun new toy/tool for us to geek out on. What a fabulous resource. There are severals ways that I can see it being useful to us: It might have great answers to questions you don’t know about sustainability ...
Snakes, meth and trash oh my! Foreclosure buyers beware
I recently watched one of those shows on Animal Planet about horrible critter encounters and one of the stories was about a home infested with garter snakes. The buyers bought the home, moved their family in and at first started noticing a few snakes in the yard. In addition, the water was rancid and there were creepy sounds coming from the walls. As ...
How one Architect made 24 rooms with 300 sq feet
Size Doesn’t Matter when it comes to form and function With the average American home size on the decrease and efficient building technology becoming more mainstream, this is a wonderful example of how much can be done with little. I’ve been following the Tiny House Blog as well as the US Solar Decathalon for a while now and think they ...
This crazy weather might be the new normal – how it impacts real estate
After an all to familiar round of storms jolted us awake early Monday morning with sounds of hail bashing our windows and of trees blowing apart all around us, we turned on our TV sets to see the horror of what happened in Joplin. From the flooding along the Mississippi, the horrific carnage in Alabama, to the extreme snow events ...
Three smartphone apps to check out for Earth Day
In honor of Earth Day, I loaded a new bundle of apps on to my phone yesterday all geared towards environmental sustainability. Here are a few of the ones that completely blow my little green mind. App #1- Light Bulb Finder 1) Light Bulb Finder - This sweet little app takes all the guessing work out of buying the right ...
More Yelp? Yes Please! Tips for generating real estate leads on Yelp
I read Lani’s fine article last week about Yelp as a reputation management tool and I thought I would throw out some of my insight as a Yelp “sort of” insider. A little background on Yelp. A couple of years ago they were trying to build up a following in Nashville and approached me with an intriguing offer to write ...
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