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A Non-Green Home Will Soon Be a Hard Sale in an Up-And-Coming Green Home Market, Here’s Why

Green Home Builders, a 63-market, Australia-based brand has cracked the code on building green, LEED-certified homes, and has built a model designed to help United States homebuilders convert.

In an increasingly competitive home market, real estate agents and homeowners alike are constantly chasing points of differentiation in homes that will add value and increase an offer on a sale. Similarly, homebuilders are looking for that same differentiation point they can market to buyers outside of traditional sellers like build time and affordability. This shift in the market has led to a rise in demand for green, more sustainable LEED-certified homes in the marketplace.

For many homebuilders, the obstacle of entering the green category has historically been two-fold: having little to no knowledge of where to begin and being trapped in a traditional builder’s mind and skillset. It’s for these reasons that Green Home Builders, the leading U.S. franchisor in energy efficient homes, has established an operational model that helps new builders enter the market and established builders gain certification — offering methods and action steps to diversify revenue streams that include the green home segment. 

“If you were to look at the data from the last five years, it clearly shows the pathway this market is on,” said Mick Fabar, CEO of Green Home Builders. “There are categories of business that have been established over the last five, 10 and 20 years. Our team of franchise owners can proudly say they got in this trend early enough to help establish leadership of the category.”

The U.S. green residential building market has skyrocketed to $81B over the last few years and the commercial green building segment is climbing as well, now accounting for 21.2% of build-outs. Aside from providing a significant value proposition, the shift toward green homes is creating healthier solutions for buyers. 

Fabar notes that, depending on the business model and the depth of the market size one is entering, the investment to franchise with Green Home Builders can range between $285,600–$2,581,000.

“We have engineered a model that is well fit for many types of financially qualified professionals. We have built a model for scale that has been tried and tested internationally,” Fabar said.

Looking Back to 2015

Each year, The National Association of Home Builders releases a report on green and sustainable home building data. In the NAHB’s 2015 report, it was stated that nearly one third of homebuilders (31%) reported that more than 60% of their projects were green, and over half (51%) expected to be doing that level of green work by 2020.

Five years later, not only did that number prove accurate — builders surpassed it. In the 2020 report, 58% of single-family-home builders and 69% of commercial builders had green projects underway, with one third or more of single-family-home builders (33%) and multi-family-home builders/ remodelers (35%) reporting 50% or more of their projects as green. 

“The projections were quite clear,” said Louis Funnell, Green Home Builders’ marketing manager. “What this means for marketing of green building spaces is that it’s only going to take on a greater market share of the way home building and home remodeling is sold.”

Today, the percentage of dedicated green builders — who identify 90% of their projects as green — has increased. In 2015, only 18% of single-family-home builders were reaching that threshold versus a rate of 21% in 2019. Similarly, multi-family-home builders/remodelers accounted for 6% in 2015 and 20% in 2019, according to a report from statista.com.

Identifying a Customer Base

When figuring out where the ideal green home customers are, there are a few data points for Green Home Builders to examine — one being the reasoning behind homeowners’ and builders’ decision to develop a green home in the first place. 64% of homeowners and builders say lowering costs of energy is the motivation behind a green home when building from the ground up, while 71% point to the same reasoning when it comes to their remodels. 

Homebuyers and homeowners looking to build a green home, or remodel their existing home to become greener, will be the top driver for increased green building, according to the NAHB report. The report also indicates that the number of LEED-certified projects in the United States rose from 296 in 2006 to over 67,200 in 2018. 

“With more customer awareness comes more requests,” Fabar said. “The homeowner is willing to spend more to make their homes green and sustainable. As the report suggests, over time more affordable, high-quality green products will launch the category to a whole new level.”

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, which tracks how many LEED-certified projects are finished as well as state-by-state ranking, in 2019 there were 2,209 projects covering 501.08 million gross square feet of LEED-certified projects, with thousands of other green projects occurring at the same time.

The states with the top number of LEED projects were California (400), New York (193), Illinois (121), Colorado (102), Massachusetts (101), Virginia (98), Maryland (96), Oregon (33), Minnesota (25) and Hawaii (12).

“We are absolutely using this data to help us guide new franchise owners in new markets,” Fabar said. “More and more projects are coming into the marketplace, and, very clearly, the volumes will only increase as more people want to build greener homes.”

Why Now?

“For franchise buyers, it's important to note that the green home category is one that’s exploding,” Fabar said. “This is how the brand has on-boarded 63 franchise owners who have either built their business from the ground up, or converted their existing home building business into Green Home Builders.”

To find out more about becoming a franchise owner in the green home building space, visit https://ghbuildersusa.com/HomeBuilderFranchise/

Additional Resources on Adding Green Building an Existing Business Model

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