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KB Home's ZeroHouse 2.0 Saves & Produces Energy

Monday, August 6, 2012
by Don DeHanas, Associate Broker

You've probably heard the old axiom that your home will be the number one monetary expense of your life. When you think about this statement, you most likely think about the purchase price of the home, which is obviously going to be a relatively large number, but there are many more costs associated with home ownership than just the price. Sometimes these additional expenses – energy bills for example – can be shockingly high over time, but like the slow leak of a faucet, they may go unnoticed for a long time. This is where KB Home's ZeroHouse 2.0 swoops in, like the Red Cross does for catastrophe victims, to put a “green” tourniquet on your house's energy-related hemorrhaging.

KB Home is a Fortune 500 home-building company based in Los Angeles. Its ZeroHouse 2.0 (also referred to as a “net-zero” green home), from all outward appearances, looks like an ordinary suburban home. Engineered to actually produce the same or similar amount of energy as it uses, KB Home's ZeroHouse 2.0 is chock full of environmentally friendly, energy-efficient appliances, electrical fixtures and lighting power sources. These renewable energy innovations and money-saving features have earned KB Home's ZeroHouse 2.0 certification from Energy Star and WaterSense.

When you take a closer look at KB Home's ZeroHouse 2.0's interior and exterior aspects, details and attributes, you will likely notice some of the home's cost efficient components, such as solar panels and low-flush toilets. And every one of the home's windows boast with dual-pane construction, an incredibly efficient feature that contributes to your energy and financial savings.

Some of the other built-in amenities common to KB Home's ZeroHouse 2.0 include, but are not limited to, a solar-powered hot water system with an 80-gallon storage tank that is filled via rooftop water collectors, which KB says can save you close to 50,000 gallons of water annually; in addition to low-flush toilets, the ZeroHouse 2.0 offers faucets and shower heads engineered to utilize approximately 2 percent less H2O than their traditional and modern brothers and sisters.

Taken altogether, KB’s ZeroHouse 2.0 signals a new generation of efficiency that can help stem outflow of money that accompanies the outflow of energy!

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Remodeling that Pays Off

Tuesday, June 5, 2012
by Don DeHanas, Associate Broker

Let’s start by observing that the phrase “pays off” can have various meanings. To some people, the issue is purely financial: will my remodeling expenditures be recouped? For others, recognizing that measuring financial return can be difficult, the issue is whether remodeling efforts cause a house to sell more quickly (or in some cases, at all). In other words, the financial benefit of remodeling may be real, but indirect.

Some remodeling efforts may be entirely visible like new kitchen cabinets, flooring and countertops, while others like renovated plumbing may be less visible yet still important to potential buyers. Depending on the individual home and the market in which it resides, different sellers may opt for different remodeling strategies. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but a skilled, experienced real estate agent can help you determine which remodeling investments are likely to work out best in your specific area.

It’s important to understand and remember at the outset is that in most situations, you may not recover all of the money that you’re likely to spend on a renovation project when it comes time to sell your home, even those efforts that raise the overall value of your home.

The No. 1 way to realize a significant payoff for your remodeling project is to repair any or all of the known problems with your house, such as a leaky roof or archaic plumbing. Depending on the specific repair or repairs, you could actually improve the value of your home and recover most if not all or more of the money spent on the repair(s).

In its annual Cost vs. Value Report for 2011-2012, Remodeling Magazine listed attic bedroom renovation projects as the one with the best chance of paying off. The site shows that in 2012, the average project cost for these jobs in the Washington, D.C., area was $44,843; and the average resale value was $36,148, giving you an 80.6 percent cost recuperation.

Kitchen remodeling projects also tend to pay off on a more regular basis than most others do, even though new appliances, cabinets, countertops, and flooring are unquestionably expensive. Once again, we turn to the good people at Remodeling magazine to take care of the number crunching for us. And they say that the cost recouped on major kitchen remodeling projects over the past year averaged more than 70 percent. Like in the attic bedroom project described above, they recorded the average job cost as $54,426, with an average resale value coming in at $38,709.

The good news is that, while you may not recover all of your remodeling expenditures in strictly financial terms, it’s important to consider the impact that remodeling may have when it comes time to sell your home. If you imagine two comparable homes – one boasting significant remodeling and one which is begging to updated – the renovated home will nearly always sell first. Unless you can afford to have your home sitting on the market for a long time, it pays to remodel and to see your home move more quickly.

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The DeHanas Team
DeHanas Real Estate Services
601 Post Office Road, Suite 2D
Waldorf MD 20602
Office: 301-870-1717
1-800-842-0190
Fax: 240-754-7867
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Servicing all Anne Arundel County, Calvert County, Charles County, and Prince George's County as well as Annapolis, Bowie, Chesapeake Beach, Crofton, Dunkirk, Edgewater, Ft. Meade, Huntingtown, La Plata, North Beach, Odenton, Owings, Pasadena, Severn, Waldorf, and the Upper Marlboro areas of Maryland, all of Washington DC, and Northern Virginia, including Alexandria, Arlington, and King George County real estate advertised in this website are subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 which makes it illegal to advertise any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap and familial status, or national origin, or any intention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination. DeHanas Real Estate Services will not knowingly accept any listing agreement for real estate sales in Anne Arundel County, Calvert County, Charles County, and Prince George's County as well as Annapolis, Bowie, Chesapeake Beach, Crofton, Dunkirk, Edgewater MD, Ft. Meade, Huntingtown, La Plata, North Beach, Odenton, Owings, Pasadena, Severn, Waldorf, and the Upper Marlboro, all of Washington DC, and Northern Virginia, including Alexandria, Arlington, and King George County areas which are in violation of the law. Our clients and customers are informed that all dwellings advertised on our website in Anne Arundel County, Calvert County, Charles County, and Prince George's County as well as Annapolis, Bowie, Chesapeake Beach, Crofton, Dunkirk, Edgewater MD, Ft. Meade, Huntingtown, La Plata, North Beach, Odenton, Owings, Pasadena, Severn, Waldorf, and the Upper Marlboro, all of Washington DC, and Northern Virginia, including Alexandria, Arlington, and King George County areas are available on an equal opportunity basis. All prices and finance claims appearing in this site are subject to change without notice.