Kitchener Green Housing Incentive Program

This morning I had the pleasure of listening to a great seminar put on by CREW (Community Renewable Energy Waterloo) and the City of Kitchener discussing the benefits of the KGHIP (Kitchener Green Housing Incentive Program).

It's an incentive program designed to encourage builders and consumers to build high performance green homes.

Builders may be interested as a great program they can offer consumers as a way to get paid for making greener choices. Consumers are recognizing the importance of being greener and many will chose greener choices over other choices, even when it costs more.

Basically the City of Kitchener will pay you to build your new home as a LEED home. LEED is a third party company that will assess the home you've built and give you ratings based on it's eco-friendliness. The City of Kitchener then gives you cash incentives based on those ratings.

Note that an Energy Star home is not included in the incentive program since after 2012 every home built will HAVE to be a minimum of an Energy Star Home. That's good news for our environment!

If you're thinking of building a new home in Kitchener, it's worth asking about the KGHIP.

Essentially for approximately a coffee a day you can get PAID to build an Energystar home. If you were to give that coffee a day back to the builder you could build a LEED home for free. If you were willing to give up a coffee or two a day that would be about the cost of building a LEED Platinum home.

Great job, Kitchener! Our environment thanks you for putting this as a priority! If you're building a new home in Kitchener, why WOULDN'T you take advantage of this program?

Any questions at all pop me an email! krista@jonkerteam.com

Here are a few websites you may find interesting:

LEED
CREW
CITY OF KITCHENER KGHIP

Reference from happy buyers

Buyers sent me this glowing reference.....I love working with great people!

"When we decided to relocate from Ottawa to Kitchener-Waterloo, we asked our selling agent to refer us to a high-calibre agent in the KW area. After doing some research, she introduced us to Krista. Even though we were still preparing our home in Ottawa for market, Krista made a point of communicating frequently with us, and met with my husband to understand what type of home we were looking for. Krista set us up with an MLS alert and was very responsive (and patient!) as we changed our minds over and over about our requirements. When we travelled to KW on a house-buying trip, Krista had all the bases covered for us, right down to ensuring our kids were entertained while we were out viewing homes. Krista sourced a wide range of properties for us to view and, as we were unfamiliar with the area, provided us with candid advice on various neighbourhoods, locations, schools and amenities. Once we found the right property for us, Krista worked quickly and under difficult circumstances to ensure that our offer was accepted. She helped us organize a home inspection and kept on top of all the details. We are now waiting for our closing date to move in, and Krista is continuing to offer support to help make our move a successful one. Working with Krista was a very pleasant and positive experience. She is always friendly, receptive, responsive and ready to help. We highly recommend her to anyone relocating to the KW area." C&R, Stittsville, ON

January and February Stats

Here is the market update for the first part of 2011. Decreased number of sales, but prices staying pretty steady. Last February was significantly higher than normal, this February more "normal".
http://www.kwreb.on.ca/january-home-sales-return-to-normal-levels-in-kitchener-waterloo/
http://www.kwreb.on.ca/Stats/February_2011_Media_Release.pdf

One thing the stats don't always show are the overall climate. This last month there were quite a few multiple offer situations in KW. There seems to be more buyers out there than listings indicating a slight seller's market. If that continues, that can sometimes drive prices up a bit more. Sometimes the spring listings will catch up and it will even out a bit.

This month I've been keeping busy with market evaluations for clients looking to sell in the near or not so near future. Some looking to downsize, and some looking to upsize. I was also able to help C&R secure a new home for their family. After a few attempts we were able to find them an underpriced home on a beautiful greenspace lot and we were even able to avoid multiple offers! Worth the wait!

The sun is shining today and melting the snow. Gives me opportunity to remind you to take a walk around your property and be sure the melting snow is heading in a direction away from your house. Noone wants to discover the cracks in their foundation the hard way, with water in the basement!

Enjoy the sun!