"You gave me both motivation and knowledge to successfully accomplish implementation of "green" data fields in our MLS."
Barbara Madaras, CRS, GREEN
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Current News
NAR's Green Designation Now Available in Canada!
Recognition of the 2012 EverGreen Award Winners
NAR's Green Designation now available in Canada!
Don't miss your chance to take the newest version of NAR's Green 100: Real Estate for a Sustainable Future. NAR's Green REsource Council worked closely with several credible organizations to ensure the course content was accurate and relevant for the Canadian marketplace. These courses now deliver content specific to REALTORS® in Canada who are interested in energy efficiency and sustainability in homes.
The National Association of REALTORS® made NAR's Green Designation Canada-specific in order to provide education, resources and tools so Canadian real estate practitioners can successfully seek out, understand, and market properties with green features. This innovative program offers specific themes ranging from sustainability, green building science and business applications.
NAR's Green Designation requires successful completion of 3 courses, each six hours long and requires designees to maintain membership with the Canadian Real Estate Association and NAR's Green REsource Council (annual dues are $99 USD; the first year of membership is free with successful completion of 2 of the 3 courses).
Ontario registrants who successfully meet the attendance and final exam requirements of the first course will be conferred 6 hours of CE credit. Students who enter the code "ENBRIDGE" upon registering at the link below will receive $50 off the course cost!
The event will be hosted at EverGreen Brick Works in Toronto on Tuesday, December 4th. For more information and to register, click here.
Recognition of the 2012 EverGreen Award Winners
NAR's Green REsource Council is thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2012 EverGreen Award. Winners of this award include NAR Green Designees and educators who deserve special recognition for applying green and sustainable principles to their real estate practice and advancing the awareness of green and sustainable issues to stakeholders in the brokerage of real estate.
Among this year’s nominees were agents, Green Designation instructors and REALTOR® associations leading the charge in sustainability, awareness, and education. NAR’s Green REsource Council and an independent panel have reviewed the nominations and are pleased to announce the following 2012 EverGreen Award:
Betsy Macomber, GREEN, is a real estate agent and REALTOR® in the San Diego area who is involved in organizations in San Diego, including the California Center for Sustainable Energy, and the San Diego Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Betsy learned first-hand the true benefits of sustainable housing when rebuilding her home with insulated concrete forms (ICFs), high-performance building materials.
“Between my husband and me, we were able to be owner/builders using green methods and hire others to implement what we weren’t capable of doing ourselves,” explains Macomber.
Betsy, active in real estate since 1992, has helped educate home buyers and sellers about the value of sustainable housing by offering open houses and tours of her own certified home throughout the building process. Her NAR Green Designation and other industry training helped her to share the benefits of a variety of her home’s features with architects and students as well as journalists and reporters.
David Popoff, GREEN, is a real estate salesperson and REALTOR® in Fairfield County, CT with William Pitt Sotheby’s in Darien, CT. His background in real estate, construction and property management allows him to have a unique and practical perspective on sustainable living. He holds a LEED AP for Homes certification and is a Certified Green Professional (CGP) with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). He also is an accredited Energy Star® rater. David participates with the Connecticut Green Building Council, the Home Builders and Remodeler’s Association of Fairfield County and GreenTowns.com.
But David doesn’t only promote his own experience. He attends events, forums, meetings, and tradeshows throughout the year promoting the benefits of sustainability and encouraging prospective home buyers and sellers to work with NAR Green Designees. His Website and technology skills have encouraged his readers to make greener choices in their own lives.
Dave Porter, owner of Porterworks in Stanwood, WA, has been an instructor for NAR’s Green Designation courses since the inception of the program in 2008. He has been involved in the real estate and mortgage lending industry for more than 30 years, from which he offers shares his experience working with green rebates, tax incentives, energy efficient mortgages (EEMs) and appraisals of houses with third party–verified environmental certifications. In October 2007, Dave and his wife Anna completed a major renovation of their beach home near Seattle. “Going Green at the Beach,” as the home is called, achieved five certifications, including Built Green™ 5 Star and LEED® for Homes Gold. Dave is a nationally recognized green industry expert, speaker, trainer and writer.
Marjory Gentsch, ABR®, GREEN, GRI, earned NAR’s Green Designation only a month after the program’s 2008 debut and became a certified instructor for the program shortly thereafter. Marjory is also a broker with Austin, Texas’ Hill Country Green Team. She actively works with REALTOR® associations and members to teach NAR’s Green Designation for a variety of Texas locations. She was a key contributor to the addition of the first green fields in the Austin Board of REALTORS’® MLS, and works tirelessly to increase awareness on issues of indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Her participation in NAR’s Green REsource Council has also allowed Marjory to stay connected with NAR Green Designees through Webinars and other education events outside of teaching the GREEN courses.
The Texas Association of REALTORS® has excelled as a provider for NAR’s Green Designation course, hosting 16 green classes in 2012—so far to a total of more than 100 students. The education staff and leadership understand the value of education and have provided all three Green Designation program courses in a live lecture format—Green 100: Real Estate for a Sustainable Future, Green 200: The Science of Green Building, and Green 300: Greening Your Real Estate Business.
Laura Stukel, GREEN, BPOR, is being awarded a special honor this year as the Green REsource Council’s first-ever Green Industry Advocate for her work in helping multiple listing services (MLSs) across the U.S. implement searchable fields for houses with green building features as well as third party–verified environmental certifications. Laura understands the process first hand, having worked with REALTOR® Sarah Coulter and a Green Committee to implement these fields at Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED), one of the largest MLSs, providing service to 40,000 brokers in Chicago and surrounding communities. In September 2011, Laura organized a Green MLS/Better Buildings Roundtable in Chicago and convened stakeholders from across the real estate industry—REALTORS®, appraisers, MLS operators, trade associations, government organizations, as well as recipients of Better Buildings grant funding. Laura is a nationally recognized consultant, writer and speaker on home energy efficiency and serves on the board of the Home Performance Resource Center. Laura was recognized with a 2010 EcoBroker Community Service Award, and was also named a 2012 and 2011 Five Star Professional Real Estate Agent. In 2012, Laura delivered the keynote presentation, “Seeking the Holy Grail (a.k.a. a Resale Premium) in a Turbulent Market,” at Efficiency Vermont's Better Buildings by Design conference.
The Green REsource Council is thrilled to be working with this caliber of green real estate professionals and hope to grow the pool of talent as NAR’s Green Designation program continues to evolve.
Winners in each category were considered based on their ability to exemplify the following actions:
• Guiding buyer-clients in purchasing green real estate or making green upgrades to their existing home.
• Acting as a positive force for creating sustainable and energy efficient communities.
• Advancing the belief that every step toward green is a step in the right direction.
• Creative implementation of green events, practices or habits in their business and community.
• Providing their clients and communities with on-going information, tools and support about green building features.