Finance
Brooklyn Farmers’ Market and Twinkies
I see the Brooklyn Farmers’ Market as the antithesis of a Twinkie.
The Twinkie is always the same. It lasts forever, is full of chemicals and is made on some distant planet. And never does it create a healthy sense of community.
The Brooklyn Farmers’ Market on the other hand is possibly the most powerful community force since Indians sat [...]
Eco Brooklyn Green Building Terms
On the Eco Brooklyn job sites we have certain green building concepts that we use. They are mostly coined by me to help the crew and clients understand what Eco Brooklyn’s core goals are. They are easy rallying points to help us all stay on track.
These terms can be searched on this site for more [...]
Green Building Sales – Art of Bid Pricing
I love the psychology of sales. It is what distinguishes humans from numbers.
The sale item that a shop keeper takes a loss on to get people in the door so they buy other things. Half price drinks at the bar with the hope people will stay and buy full price drinks. Pricing something at $99 [...]
Waste, Toxic Homes
The other day I passed by a Manhattan condo renovation and saw they were throwing out good stuff: metal studds and flooring. The contractor told me it was a 3,000 sq.ft. condo that right before the current gut reno it had just been gut renovated!
It had high end everything: Poggen Pohl German kitchen, slate counters, [...]
Permaculture, Pigs and Bees
Here is a cool insight into nature. It is by Michael Pollan. He also talks about the Polyface Farm which is run by “grass farmer” Joel Salatin. Joel is interviewed a lot in the Food Inc Movie. Check out the talk below, follow the links above. All very cool stuff.
Not directly connected to green contractors [...]
New Green Homes Book
The book “New Green Homes” by Sergi Costa Duran, Liliana Bollini and Ethel Pohl is a focused book. It is an architects visual study of modern homes around the world. They claim the homes are green but I didn’t really see that.
What I did see was a study of a very specific architectural style, and [...]
Second Wave Of Mortgage Defaults
Sixty Minutes ran a very interesting and sobering segment on the state of real estate now and to come. According to them there is a second wave of collapsing mortgages as some more exotic mortgages like the option arm readjust their interest rates, spiking the monthly payments on people.
If for some reason the movies below [...]
100K House
A reporter was over at the Brooklyn green show house last week and I was talking about the importance of Brooklyn green contractors being affordable to middle class people in order for our goal of turning Brooklyn green to be successful.
She mentioned another green developer who had built a house in Phili for $100K and [...]
Brooklyn Real Estate Pulse
The Magazine called The Real Deal just published a comprehensive analysis of Brooklyn real estate.
Bottom line: prices have dropped to 2005 levels.
The wost hit were speculative new construction levels like Williamsburg and Bushwick.
Carroll Gardens and surrounding areas fared the best because of the lack of new construction. There is a solid houseing stock [...]
Demo Bags – Trash Bag Alternative
One of the most revolutionary things to happen to our company was the discovery of Demo Bags, a contractor garbage bag alternative. It is revolutionary because it is so simple yet so profound. We are a green construction company in Brooklyn. We salvage, reuse, and recycle like obsessed neurotic 1950’s house wives if they did [...]
Pew study: Green Jobs Growing More Than 2x as Fast as All Other Jobs
This just out: Green Business is Booming. I agree. Eco Brooklyn is getting almost more jobs than we can handle.
From the wire:
The Pew Charitable Trusts has conducted the first-ever hard count across all 50 states of the actual jobs, companies and venture capital investments that supply the growing market demand for environmentally friendly products and [...]
Green Home Lenders
Here are two banks who supposedly offer financing for green homes in New York. I haven’t used them (yet).
Bank of America 800-900-9000 2007 Special Financing
Pulaski Bank Home Lending 913-338-4300 2008 Special Financing
Green Tax Accountant
As a green contractor in Brooklyn we need to be very aware of current tax rebates and incentives since it has an impact on the cost of any job. And the rebates are constantly changing. To stay on top of them we work closely with Steve Goldberg, a Tax Consultant who specializes in this area.
Steve [...]
Quote of the Day: Do good but have a strong strategy too
‘We learned that a product doesn’t sell just because you’re trying to do good in the world. You still have to have a healthy distribution, a good marketing strategy, and price the product properly.”
Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s, on their “Peace Pop” product that flopped.
This is an important point for those of us who [...]
Green Building is Old Building
As a green contractor in Brooklyn, NY. I can post an add on Craigslist.org and get a hundred responses in an hour of highly qualified people asking very little for their work. Such is the nature of the economy, a highly skilled region and immediate technology.
But here is the kicker: I get people asking to [...]
Example of How NOT to build Green
There is a gut renovation going on accross the street from our green show house. It is a classic renovation where a lot of money is being spent and not much thought going into how it is done. The owner is getting reamed with prices IMO.
A couple weeks ago there was a dumpster full of [...]
Quality is tied to quality and no longer tied to price
Our budget for the Brooklyn green show house got decimated with this banking crisis. So we don’t really have a budget any more. It is basically as cheap as we can make it.
For our kitchens for example we were going to buy salvaged kitchens, make them in house out of salvaged wood or find [...]
Financing Cut
When we went into contract for the property that is currently being built as a green show house it was during the “normal” financial times of March 2006.
No storms were on the horizon and everyone was still giddy from the constant rise of funding and property prices.
Our plan was to do what we had always [...]
Green Policies of interest
Here is a useful list of policies put into action by our gov that affect green building. The list is courtesy of Green Homes NYC
A. 10684 / S. 8134
Sponsors: Cahill (D-Ulster, Dutchess) / Maziarz (R-Niagara)
Signed Into Law: 9/25/08
Creates a new NYSERDA grant program to provide incentives for green residential construction and renovation. Grant amounts [...]
$700 Billion Bailout has $17 Billion for Energy Tax Incentives
This Bush bailout fiasco which in many ways is a total con actually has at least one good side: it earmarks $17 Billion is tax incentives for green building. A tax incentive is no use if you aren’t making enough money to actually pay taxes of course, so for many people a tax incentive is [...]
Value Engeneering in Co-ops
Value Engineering is a useful concept. In the article below it is applied to co-ops but can be applied to any building practice.
Saving Green, and Greening, Too
Value Engineering Analysis helps condo owners and environment
It’s no secret that the current trend in home greening has been a boon
for developers and homeowners, [...]