How will this affect Austin Real Estate ? (sales, apartments)

[HappyTexan]

Is this new Austin ordinance good or bad for Austin Real Estate ?

I'm thinking good for buyers since they will get this information up front.

Council OKs conservation audits for property sales - Austin Business Journal:

[Trainwreck20]

Interesting. I can't expect and energy audit will actually cost much...inspector will look at the AC, peek in the attic, and check out the windows, etc., I am guessing. On the other hand, I would think that this could also be left on the purchaser, too, since it should not be too difficult to add an audit section to the home inspectors list and maybe have them do a little extra training/learning.

I think it is more interesting that the apartments will have to disclose, since you can easily burn a significant amount of money in a poorly run apartment.

[dguild]

Well for starters, it's another $200-$300 added to closing costs.

[austin-steve]

The impact is hard to estimate at this point, because the retrofit requirements are volountary. It's the inspections that might cause a bottleneck.

But let's look at some numbers, just for residential sales.
17,000+ homes have sold through the Austin MLS this year.
7,500 of those are actually in Austin. (less than that actually, because "Austin" mailing adress doesn't necessarily mean in the city of Austin - i.e. Belterra, but let's go with the 7,500)

4,950 are older than 10 years old, and thus exempt.

From there one would further subtract exempt homes that have participated in Austin home energy programs already. I don't know the number but let's assume it might be 10%, which would leave about 4,500 homes.

4500/10 would be about 450 sales per month subject to an energy audit, which must be provided by the seller to the buyer along with the Seller's Disclosure Notice.

The problem is that there are only about 12 inspectors certified in Austin for the type of inspection needed. The classes to receive certificaion are not held frequently, so there are home inspectors flying to other parts of the country to get certified.

This pre-inspection certification should cost less than $300, which will be the Seller's cost up front. From there, it simply becomes something that is an added variable in the sales price and repair negotiations.

The interesting twist, which I am waiting to see play out, is if we are going to have an inspector come do an energy audit anyway, why not have him go ahead and pre-inspect the home at the same time, and then provide the buyer with not only the energy audit report, but the full pre-inspection as well.

Pre-inspections are a very good idea, but few sellers do it. Maybe this will trigger a different way of looking at inspections in selling houses. Of course the buyer should still have their own inspection done, but at least a seller could hand it over at the front end of the deal and say "here is our inspection .The highlighted things have been taken care of, and the rest we are not going to do anything about, so make your offer accordingly".

We'll see how it plays out.

Steve

[centralaustinite]

Why are houses over 10 years old exempt? Those are the ones I want an energy audit of the most!!

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by centralaustinite

Why are houses over 10 years old exempt? Those are the ones I want an energy audit of the most!!

Sorry, I meant under 10 years old.

[b. frank]

Last year, I bought a new HVAC system and the city paid for a bunch of it (through rebates) by having me do the weather-stripping, duct sealing (actually, I had full duct replacement), and adequate insulation in the attic.

I'm worried if I will be required to do more than that - such as bring everything up to current codes - that would require new insulation in my walls at least. Not to mention electricity - will that be invloved? For my house (36 years old) I would need to replace my wiring to be up-to-code.

This sounds like this will result in major losses in equity for some people.

[pbnj07]

This may be a good idea, just not the best of timing.

Home sales are suffering enough right now without this.