In our current NAR GREEN designation course we gave the students a Take Home Awareness Log. They were asked to do a brief energy inventory on their own homes and notice what things were drawing energy that they previously had not even noticed were “on”. They also were asked to answer such questions as how many times did you notice you were leaving a room with the lights turned on or fail to turn off appliances.
In addition they were asked to count the number of CFL bulbs in their homes and share the experiences of their new increased awareness levels. These agents have committed time and money to increase their knowledge and awareness of GREEN issues so that they could bring more “value added services” to their clients. If you are interested in understanding how to minimize your operational and maintence costs of owning a home. Work with an agent who knows. They are the ones with NAR’s GREEN designation. Here is what they had to say!
Kathy Mallory – “I became more more aware of the energy that my home was consuming and the money I was spending every day on things that I wasn’t even aware of. We counted up the number of watts each of bulbs in our home was draining out of our pockets and ended up with 4200. Hey, there’s only two of us that live there.”
Ronnie Dalesandro – “I was amazed at how easy it really is to remedy and decrease our energy usage once we have awareness. That means that with new awareness the ease of saving money on utilities is so much easier than I initially thought it would be.”
Joette Schenck – “I was humbled by this experience. The time that it takes to turn appliances on and off is minimal compared with the cost savings that we can realize.”
Joan Phillips – “More than anything I found out that I can set an example for everyone in my household, including my children. They tend to pattern what we do. Individually we can all make a collective difference much greater than I expected!
Allan Johnson – “I found out I can start a trend. When we first moved into our neighborhood there was hardly any recycling at all. We started recycling. Other people copied us and now most of the neighborhood recycles. So today here I am as the real estate professional setting the standard for my entire community.”
Neil Snyder – “Manufacturers need to get on board in assisting us with ease in energy savings. Why don’t all my appliances and devices have easy to reach on and off switches. The sooner that more of us begin making these demands on products the faster it will happen!”
Mary Bast – ” It’s amazing how fast all the little things add up. Being greener and saving money doesn’t have to involve monumental changes. It’s all the little things that we are not aware of that add up to huge expenses that we can all reduce if we just pay more attention.”
Michelle Goodman – “Doing an exercise like this will make you more aware of the energy we are actually using and will help you to change and modify your behavior.”
Barbara Boehm – “I used to leave the TV on all of the time. I just wasn’t aware of how much that was costing me in an effort to leave the TV on for the dog. The dog will now have to learn how to read a book!”