Green Home Buyer’s Guide

How to Buy a Green Home

Join us for a detailed overview of the home buying process and learn what steps you can expect to make when buying a home.

Is Home Ownership Right for You?

This section looks at the pros and cons of homeownership to help you make the investment decision that’s wise for you.

How Much Home Can You Afford?

PART 3

This section gets down to the business of housing costs and explains how to assess mortgage affordability.

How to Find a Green Real Estate Agent

PART 4

Read up on how to choose a realtor and how to find a real estate agent who specializes in green homes.

Green Home Buying Checklist

PART 5

A comprehensive list of questions to ask yourself when purchasing a green home. Get to know what you really want.

Are you thinking of buying a green home? That’s fantastic news! As you’ve probably guessed, we love green homes, and there are a ton of excellent reasons why we should.

They help us live sustainably in many ways: they save energy, they conserve resources like water, they lower our carbon footprints, they keep building materials out of landfills, they help curb air pollution by finding alternatives to toxic materials and finishes…

We could go on.

So we will! Green homes also save their owners money on things like heating and cooling bills, and show a bigger increase in value over time compared to conventional homes. If you’re considering a green home, you’re at the cutting edge of a housing trend that’s poised to grow and grow.

There’s a persistent myth that all those benefits are outweighed by higher costs. We tend to think of green homes as being high-end luxury houses that are beyond the reach of most home buyers, but it’s important to know that that’s not necessarily the case. Architect Christopher Briley explains that home buyers with bigger budgets tend to want green features, fuelling the association between green homes and high price points. That, however, is more a correlation than a cause.

“A lot of these houses,” he says, “are going to be expensive anyway.” But that doesn’t put all green homes out of range for average home buyers. As Briley notes, it’s “all about where you decide to spend your money,” and if green features are a priority for you, you’re increasingly likely to find a home that’s been built with some attention to sustainability.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s go over some basics. In many ways, buying a green home isn’t all that different from buying a conventional home. So this guide will walk you through the ins and outs of buying a house, with special sections that will help you decide if home ownership is the right decision for you in this moment and help you figure out how much house you can really afford.

Your home, however, isn’t going to be just any home, so in each section we’ve offered some information specific to buying an eco-friendly house, from planning considerations to finding a realtor who has experience with green homes. We’ve also included a helpful Green Home Buying Checklist and resources for further reading at the bottom of each page.

Before you start house hunting, read this guide and learn all you can about making the leap to owning your own green home!

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