Eco homes have resulted in increaseed green space, which has both environmental and financial benefites for the value of the property over time.
Eco-homes, or any number of variations of the term have been around since the early 1990's. Unfortunately for the environment, very few actual eco-homes or green-homes have been sold since they were initially introduced to the general public. Partly due to the high cost of the high-tech materials used in eco-homes, home buyers preferred their traditional energy inefficient houses to ones created to help save the planet. Not aiding the fight for eco-homes were real estate agents, who cared little about learning enough information to be able to appropriately sell the planet-friendly products.
Great Britain seems to be leading the market on eco-homes, however this does not appear to be due to any efforts from real estate agents within that country. In fact, even the large real estate firms do not have any listings for eco-homes in their records. The lack of inventory for environmentally friendly homes has not changed much in over 15 years. While consumers have the option to pay significantly higher prices to have their eco-home custom built, there has not been a major eco-home market.
However, in the last few years a few property websites have chosen to specialize in listing and selling eco-homes. They cover areas in the United Kingdom, as well as internationally. The website GreenMoves.com was created three years ago and regularly list 50 to 100 eco-homes in their portfolio of available properties in the UK. They also provide listings for eco-homes outside of the UK, particularly for properties in France. The requirements for any property to be listed are quite simple however they must be highly rated according to eco-homes standards set by Bream. The company wants to ensure that any home listed as an eco-home is an actual eco-home in function and not just name.
As the number of agents who list eco-homes increases, the market for them will also develop. It appears as though the initial promise of eco-homes presented back in the early 1990's is finally making progress towards being delivered to the public at large.