6 Tips for Selling High-Performance Homes
Building green homes can not only provide prospective buyers with clear benefits, such as decreased energy and water usage and utility bill savings, but some “hidden” benefits as well, including improved indoor air quality, more efficient heating and cooling systems, and more.
The Home Performance Counts: Virtual Green Home Tour series provides insights into multiple facets of the high-performance residential building industry and how to communicate these benefits effectively. The following are just a few tips from recent tours.
Realizing the Added Value of Green for the Sale
Just saying something is “green” doesn’t necessarily mean prospective buyers understand what that entails. Positioning key features of your home and working with other professionals can help boost a home’s appeal. For example:
- Illustrate with visuals. This prompts prospective buyers to ask ‘what is this, and what does it mean?’ For example, a graphic of the home’s HERS index score starts a conversation about the products used to make the homes more energy efficient. You can then use that conversation to emphasize the savings those products will provide for the buyers, which is always a great selling point.
- Develop a good working relationship with your local real estate agents. Make sure they understand your property — what’s inside the walls, on top of the house, in the ground, as well as what a potential buyer can see — so they can talk about it.
- Provide all the documentation for the house. This will help populate the MLS fields with the high-performance features, and can be used to complete the Residential Green and Energy Efficient Addendum for the appraiser.
Translating Green to Potential Customers
Help buyers understand how technology can help provide other, perhaps less noticeable, benefits beyond energy efficiency and cost savings. For example:
- Tight building envelopes and outdoor air exchange technology can decrease the impact of high pollen levels or wildfire smoke.
- Structured plumbing and hot water recirculation loops can mean not waiting for hot water out of faucets or showerheads.
- Highly insulated walls can improve sound quality and create quiet places to work or learn without the background noise of family members or pets.
The green home tour series is a product of Home Performance Counts, a joint educational initiative between NAHB and the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Each month a free 45-minute program showcases a high-performance home from around the country and features a live Q&A session with the builder and real estate professional discussing how to talk to customers about, and how to best sell, green homes.
The free series is scheduled to resume Sept. 16 at 3 p.m. ET.
To stay current on the high-performance residential building sector, with tips on water efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and other building science strategies, follow NAHB’s Sustainability and Green Building efforts on Twitter.
Latest from NAHBNow
Oct 23, 2025
IBS 2026 Exhibit Home Aims for Groundbreaking Energy-Efficiency RatingFor anyone curious about how far today’s innovative building products can take a home’s performance, The New American Home 2026 is the must-see showcase at the upcoming Builders’ Show, taking place Feb. 17–19.
Oct 22, 2025
NAHB Generates Enthusiasm for the Trades During the Big BuildNAHB recently introduced thousands of students to the skilled trades during The Big Build event at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
Latest Economic News
Oct 20, 2025
Non-Conventional Financing for New Home Sales Loses Ground in 2024Nationwide, the share of non-conventional financing for new home sales accounted for 31% of the market per NAHB analysis of the 2024 Census Bureau Survey of Construction (SOC) data. This is 1.7 percentage point lower than the 2023 share of 32.4%. As in previous years, conventional financing dominated the market at 69.3% of sales, higher than the 2023 share of 67.6%.
Oct 17, 2025
Better Growth, Larger Deficits: CBO Fiscal OutlookThe Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a key nonpartisan score keeper that measures the effects of policy changes by the Federal Government. With several policy changes since January of this year, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), stricter immigration, and higher tariffs, the CBO updated its economic projections through 2028.
Oct 16, 2025
Amid Market Challenges, Builder Expectations Rise in OctoberEven as builders continue to grapple with market and macroeconomic uncertainty, sentiment levels posted a solid gain in October as future sales expectations surpassed the 50-point breakeven mark for the first time since last January.