Premiums for Green

Pulte Homes is the most consistent of the top-five homebuilders (in our opinion of course) when it comes to polling buyers on their willingness to "pay for green." How many will? Pulte says that at least 70% of their customers will pay about $1,500 more for a green bell or whistle that can guarantee them yearly savings of $300.

Keeping in mind that these results are several years stale, the basics are in place: it's not all about feeling good. Marketing green as modern and responsible is a big help in the sales cycle, but saavy developers know that consumers have long audited green attributes against expected returns. For every dollar you've spent to attain a LEED point, your proforma guru should be double-checking that buyers are willing to shell out for that attribute's corresponding price premium.