For Sale: Eco-Friendly Home with Free Prius
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 09. 8.06
Real estate developers often offer drastic price cuts or expensive upgrades for free to combat a sluggish housing market; Clarum Homes, builders of energy-efficient and eco-friendly real estate, is taking a different approach. In a move they're hoping will help sell off the last five remaining units in a development in Watsonville, CA, they are offering a free Toyota Prius with each house. Clarum, whom we featured before in a discussion of "Zero Energy Communities," started their environmental quest by installing solar electric systems as standard equipment and have since moved on to other products and systems that reduce energy consumption, encourage conservation, and use recycled or sustainable resources. John Suppes, Clarum's founder and president, decided he could do more for the environment by putting home buyers into the energy efficient cars than further reducing prices; this is a bit of a head-scratcher for us, but we do applaud their marketing savvy. ::Clarum Homes via ::AutoblogGreen
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Wish we saw more of this in the Northern Virginia area.
According to the latest census, Northern Virginia has five of the top 10 wealthiest counties in the country (!), yet no noticeable interest from builders in marketing this kind of home.
If only builders would take the plunge and make at least one or two such homes part of each "house farm" they sprout up, I'm sure they'd catch on. After all, we've got one of the hottest hybrid markets in the country!
Fascinating comment Scottia. Think about who lives in northern VA of a buying age: the governing class; high-level technocrats in bureaucracies; international delegates; land, lobbyists.
any green housing developments closer to the bay area? menlo park, castro valley?
**Author's comments**
Benjamin,
Thanks for the question -- check out the new Modern Green Living Directory, run by the good folks over at Vivavi -- it's brand new but might have some good resources for you.
CD
Installing solar panels, bamboo flooring, concrete siding, and offering a Prius does not make the houses built by Clarum any better than other builders; it just makes them sligtly less ecologically offensive. After all, the house is in a typical low density suburban tract where its residents will be commuting great lengths to and from work (one in a Prius), the building of the house disrupted the eco system where it was built, diesel burning tractors graded the soil and diesel burning trucks delivered materials. Get the picture? This is a prime example of greenwashing.