Luck o' the Green?

Those of you in the biz will find no surprise in this:  getting an appraiser to recognize the greenness of a home is still pretty tough.  According to Lew Sichelman, WSJ Digital Market Watch, in his article "Good luck getting a 'green' home appraised as such" getting that done is going to take some luck.  But getting more appraisers and lenders to recognize the value of green homes is going to take more than luck.  As he quotes Dave builders, agents and lenders have a right--and in fact, according to FNMA lenders have a responsibility--to demand that the appraiser assigned to the property appraisal is competent in green property appraisal.  Since the passage of the controversial HVCC everyone involved in the real estate deal has incorrectly assumed that they cannot connect with the appraiser.  This is just not true.  The builder and agent have every right to make sure the appraiser has all the information needed about the subject property including all "green" features to determine accurate value.
 
And education doesn't stop there.  Appraisers and lenders need to be better educated about green building and its value.  First of all, there is much lingering mis-information about the cost vs. the value of green building.  It needs to be stressed that building green means "building good quality."  It's not just about building to code which is only good enough "to keep the builder out of jail."  It's so much more than that.  And until we get lenders and appraisers at large to "get that" it will be an uphill battle.  Second--and this is not entirely their fault--appraisers continue to cling to--and admittedly forceably so by lenders--only the comp approach to appraisal.  But the green building industry is still too young for there to be adequate comparables out there.  Both parties really need to reconsider including the cost approach as well and to gain a greater understanding of the true value of green.
 
Getting to that reality may indeed take some luck!