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 just do a search for “Second wave mortgage crisis”.
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What does this mean for green builders apart from the obvious that people will be building less? Probably the first is that there is a glut of existing buildings. The greenest building is to not build at all. The second greenest is to renovate an existing building……see where I’m going?
There will be an increased and ongoing demand for green builders to turn the existing housing stock into greener, more efficient buildings.
I don’t see any of this (slow economy, mortgage defaults etc) as bad for green builders. It makes people more humble, more connected to what is important in life and more intelligent with money, all good things for green builders.
As a green builder in Brooklyn we don’t have to worry like other builders across the country do. In other parts it sucks to be a contractor. But Brooklyn, at least brownstone Brooklyn, is strong compared to the rest of the country. We have a lot of positive things going for us – good housing stock, a dense job market, attractive culture and arts, relatively good infrastructure etc – and this will keep us above water. This means people will still renovate. Maybe less than before. But the increased desire for green renovations will offset that.
This is not the future. Our green building company is clearly seeing a growth in business as more Brooklyn clients, now focused on real green building and not just glitz, seek out affordable green builders like us to do practical improvements on their homes that will be solid investments going forward while saving them money on utility bills.
That’s what clients want now. Its got to be practical solutions that satisfies their craving to do good in the world while saving them money. And all this has been brought on by the crisis in the world, ecological and financial. So from that point of view the pain is good. It wakes people up.