Let’s talk home economics: The average American household spends $2,340 to heat, cool, and electrify its home for a year, according to the Department of Energy.<\/p>\n
That’s more than average annual spending on property taxes ($1,900) and homeowner’s insurance ($800). Over the course of a 30-year mortgage, energy costs amount to $70,000 — a big chunk of change<\/p>\n
Smart homebuyers (and renters) will factor energy costs into decisions about where to live. You’d think mortgage lenders would consider energy costs too — they need to know whether potential buyers can afford a particular home. But lenders largely ignore energy expenses, since they’re not a part of standard mortgage underwriting criteria.<\/p>\n
That would change under the SAVE (Sensible Accounting to Value Energy) Act<\/a><\/strong> [PDF], a bill backed by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) that would require lenders to consider energy costs before granting a borrower a federally insured mortgage. Bennet is considering introducing the bill after the August congressional recess, his office said, and it could end up as part of a larger banking or energy bill.<\/p>\n “Energy-efficient mortgages” have been available for years, running on the premise that borrowers who spend less on utility bills have more money available for mortgage payments. But they’ve been an underused niche product that few buyers or even lenders know about. The SAVE Act would take the concept and apply it to all government-sponsored mortgage enterprises, such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration. Those three entities currently guarantee more than 90 percent<\/a> of new loans, so the bill would have a profound effect on ramping up home efficiency.<\/p>\n Read the complete article at Grist<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let’s talk home economics: The average American household spends $2,340 to heat, cool, and electrify its home for a year, according to the Department of Energy. That’s more than average annual spending on property taxes ($1,900) and homeowner’s insurance ($800). Over the course of a 30-year mortgage, energy costs amount to $70,000 — a big … Continue reading Senate bill would make energy-efficient mortgages mainstream<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2608,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607\/revisions\/2608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}