Dwell: 5 Tips to Make Your Home Greener

Eco-Friendly Housing:

Green Month (and Earth Day) is this month, and realtor.com conducted a survey to discover how eco-friendly housing is catching on with consumers. Turns out, more than 80% of respondents would like to own a residence that is eco-friendly, and nearly 70% would pay more money for it! I found it interesting that 61% of women felt that adding eco-friendly features added value to the home whereas 55% of men did not think they added value to the home! What do you think? We recently purchased an energy-efficient washer and dryer and they do use less energy as I noticed our bill went down. So there are definitely benefits to going green as much as you can – not only for the planet but also for your pocketbook.

The Realtor.com Survey Found:

· Of the 31% of respondents that currently live in an eco-friendly home, 66% have children.

· Of the more than 80% of respondents who would like to own an eco-friendly residence, nearly 65% have children.

· More than 30% of respondents currently live in an eco-friendly residence – nearly 80% have energy-efficient appliances while almost 75% have energy-efficient lighting.

o Women make up more than half of respondents currently living in an eco-friendly residence.

o Nearly 70% of the respondents currently living in an eco-friendly residence have children.

o Of the respondents currently living in an eco-friendly residence, 10% are in California; nearly 6% in Florida; nearly 6% in Illinois; 6% in Pennsylvania; 5% in New York; 5% in Texas; 4% in Colorado; 4% in New Jersey.

· Energy-efficient appliances, lighting and air conditioning were among the most desired eco-friendly home features – nearly 80% of respondents want all three.

· Nearly 40% of respondents are willing to give up square footage for an eco-friendly residence while 75% would sacrifice a pool and 74% a game room.