I see two large sticking points with the idea: 1. it would obviously drive up the price of new housing. 2. I don't know how easy it would be to game an energy audit (which would have to locale specific).
I see two large sticking points with the idea: 1. it would obviously drive up the price of new housing. 2. I don't know how easy it would be to game an energy audit (which would have to locale specific).
That seems like a bad idea soo many fronts. Hell I do not even like the annualized utility plans the companies offer that average out utility costs over the year
No, I want to pay exactly what I use, as I use it. No more, no less
The median mortgage is $1100 per month. Say the average monthly energy bill is $200 on top of that, and interest is 5%. Instead of paying $200 to the utility company, I pay $200 + interest to the bank, and the bank just keeps the interest?
Another issue is that you'd be putting 2022 dollars in escrow to be paying energy bills in 2052. So if the escrow doesn't grow at at least the rate of inflation, home owners are losing real purchasing power.
Maybe a simpler and more tractable solution would to just require projected energy costs to be listed in any home ads.
I don't think my proposal could actually work as written above. Your suggestion is an excellent starting point for something that might actually work.
My rationale for figuring a out a mechanism to include the energy cost up front is that many people only own a home for a few years, so they are less motivated to spend money on energy savings that they will never realize. Currently, when people shop for a home in a certain price bracket, they won't price in the energy savings of a better built home. If energy pricing was mandated in every ad, it might help. If the total cost of the house plus energy and taxes for the next 30 years (just projecting from current rates) was the top line number posted in ads and you had to dig down for details, it might be adequate incentive to nudge the market toward energy savings.
The solar installers sell it as a rebate of approximately 33% of the purchase price - you get a check in the mail a few months later. But behind all that is a really complicated process that the homeowner doesn't understand, buried in a bunch of contractual fine print that nobody reads.
What happens when you sell the house? The closing needs to accurately prorate prepaid items that one side owes to the other. In the case of solar, the seller needs to pay the buyer for the portion of the "rebate" that hasn't been "used". In your scenario, the buyer needs to pay the seller for the energy that has been paid for but not used.
This is a big issue that can't be solved with an energy audit. Your house will now need to be permanently connected to the internet so a 3rd party can collect the energy data. They aren't going to do that for free! What we are seeing with solar is that the whole process is opaque enough that it supports a collection of companies who structure things so that you get just barely enough of a discount for it to be worth it, and pocketing the rest of the savings for themselves.
More efficient houses (insulation, solar panels, etc) will have much less projected energy use, so far less money needs to be put into escrow, which would make new efficient houses cheaper than new less efficient houses. Unfortunately, it does nothing about existing stock.
Generally, it’s a bad idea to be using any construction product unless it’s been around at least a few generations without major issues.
In your opinion, does that apply to stuff like 3d printed concrete houses where the material is very old but the application technology is extremely new?
Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic homes are another - typical materials in atypical layouts.
Tons of weird issues, from leaks in difficult to access areas, to weird condensation problems with no solutions.
Every building has problems. New styles of buildings or new materials create new problems with no known solutions (or no solutions at all), a surprising percentage of the time.
1. bank has more confidence in credit worthiness and can offer better rate
2. customer is more knowledgeable
3. energy cost can be hedged on the futures market
My point being, if homeowners aren’t hedging energy costs now, why would they begin to?
Tho I don't see how you could ever "pay up front" for energy for that long of a period without someone doing a futures deal. As a person especially today the energy prices fluctuate wildly.
Edit: making a hedge for your energy for the lifetime of the building (or yourself) does not in any way negate the idea of the GP. TCO is still made explicit and the energy part can be compared with other buildings and smarter decisions about insulation will be made which should drive developers into building better.