Big
Builders Push for Energy-Efficiency Initiative
To say that new-home sales have been slow lately is to put it
mildly. According to Census Bureau figures, only 322,000 new
homes found buyers in 2010. That's less than a third of the
total for 2006, and the lowest overall since 1967.
But an unlikely coalition of big builders and environmental
organizations has come up with a way to stimulate sales by
making energy-efficient new housing more attractive to
cost-conscious buyers. Their plan centers around a proposed
piece of federal legislation called the SAVE Act (the name is a
contraction of...