Kelvin Humenny of North Vancouver has created inHabit which designs, builds and installs small prefabricated dwellings for art, music, work and living. Could be a good for a place like Whistler or a cabin that is in need of an extra room.
Wow, 3 environment posts in a row.
I saw this article linked on Brenda Russell’s blog talking about an article that Garry Marr of the Financial Post. He questions if Canadians will spend more for ‘green’ homes?
Full Article Here
Al Gore would be proud. A new survey says 63% of Canadians are willing to spend more money to get a green home.
A poll conducted for Royal LePage Real Estate Services found 62% of those Canadians will spend anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 in order to get so-called green features.
“The mood of Canadian homebuyers and sellers is changing with the times — environmental concerns are impacting the decisions people are making about their dwellings,” said Phil Soper, chief executive of LePage. “From simple energy conservation efforts to more elaborate use of organic building materials, the environmental conscious mindset that our agents are seeing in clients is not a passing trend.”
LePage found that 8% of the 63% who want a green home will pay more than $20,000 extra for the privilege. The same survey found 72% of Canadians plan to look for a property with environmental improvements when they buy their next home.
Atlantic Canadians were the most likely to spend more money to buy a green home at 72% while Ontario finished last with only 60% of respondents in the province willing to pay more to go green,
The survey found 51% of respondents were concerned about the environment and felt changes needed to be made. Despite that concern, 54% of respondents said the changes would be too expensive to implement and 15% said they had no idea where to start.
“There are many simple and affordable measures than can lead to big gains for the environment and many of the practices can actually save homeowners money,” said Mr. Soper.
Almost three-quarters of Canadians say they are doing some traditional recycling. Another 74% say they have switched from regular light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, 61% have added window and door sealers to prevent heat loss and 54% have switched to high efficiency washers and dryers and are using low flow water fixtures.
The survey was conducted by Angus Reid Strategies and completed on Oct. 16. It is considered accurate to within 2.75 percentage points, 19 times of 20.
The team over at ONNI is making unique use of some expensive land in downtown Vancouver. I was driving by the other day and noticed this sign on Pacific Street:
If you can’t read it, it says:
“For the Residents of Vancouver,
Community Park and Garden.
Contact us to take part in the planting and setup of your community garden”
You can see the garden here:
View Larger Map
What a great way to get involved and do something good for the community and the environment.
Lately the world seems to getting more and more on the environment band wagon. Have you?
- Macdonald Realty offers their clients the ability to make all of their real estate transactions earth friendly with their MacGreen Program.
- James Rodgers has built his real estate business around being a Greener Realtor
- Ian Watt is discontinuing the realtor standard “just sold” unaddressed flyers and sending all of their just listed flyers electronically via email to those who sign up and who are interested in their service.
What are you doing to “get green”?