Building Better Communities With Housing Sustainability

One agent’s firsthand report at how NAR’s focus on sustainability is preserving housing inventory and the land it sits on.

The National Association of Realtors® 2024 Sustainability Summit was held in early June in Minneapolis with a focus on initiatives to upgrade our nation’s housing stock, add client value, increase business, and lead on an urgent global issue. As an agent who is committed to helping my clients find new and innovative ways to increase value in their homes and build more resilient communities, I was excited to hear what’s coming to the sustainability market from those working in the sustainability industry.

Realtors® work to help our buyers and sellers navigate myriad changes in an accelerated landscape, something the Sustainability Summit reinforced with each panel discussion. As the organizers laid out in the mission of the conference, “(Agents) understand that sustainability isn’t a box to check, but a fundamental part of our job. Our inventory requires stewardship. The properties we help people call home must be maintained, protected, and updated to grow in value.”

The summit had an emphasis on high-performance homes, which are properties with features that increase energy efficiency, prioritize climate resiliency, and reduce emissions while reinforcing comfort, durability, and a healthy indoor environment. Mentioned throughout the meeting were organizations and resources that provide standards to measure these features, like the non-profit Passive House Institute US, Inc. (PHIUS) and the Department of Energy’s Pearl Certification. These provide savvy agents and their buyer-clients quantifiable ways to compare properties and interpret results. These standards will also help seller-clients leverage these features when marketing their homes.

Forward-thinking speakers dominated the panels, including Rohit Bhargava, the summit’s keynote speaker and best-selling author of How to be a Non-Obvious Thinker (And See What Others Miss), the newest addition to his Non-Obvious Thinking book series. In his presentation he shared, ““Obvious Thinking is the inability to imagine something different, think bigger, be open minded, or shift your perspective” and challenged participants to invest in unconventional thinking to inspire change within the industry and serve the public.

Bhargava’s presentation resonated because while real estate has always been a dynamic field, factors like fluctuating interest rates, reduced inventory, and rising prices are affecting housing sales nationwide. Other influencers such as technical innovations and climate change, and developments in related industries like public utilities and insurance companies, are all moving parts that affect housing and sustainability advances.

Sustainability, stewardship, and home ownership go hand-in-hand, and as housing professionals we work to educate our clients, help them navigate industry changes, avoid expensive or unnecessary pitfalls, and maximize not only a property’s environmental benefits but its investment value as well.

If you are interested in working with a Realtor® who has advanced knowledge about these initiatives, look for agents with NAR’s GREEN or a LEED Green Associate designation as they have completed additional training in issues of energy efficiency and sustainability in real estate. There are many within our McEnearney | Middleburg Real Estate | Atoka Properties family and we’re excited to share our passion for building great communities!

Since permanently moving back to Northern Virginia, JaneEllen McLaughlin Saums developed an intimate knowledge of its diverse communities, and thanks to her teaching background, JaneEllen has always educates her clients on the area’s market and housing options, to make sure that they find the best place suited to them to call home.