feeling green yet?

To pick up the trail we'll consider how awareness might fold into the decision process to temper the infatuation response with recognition that beyond the subtle visual cues that might combine to create an alluring intuitive feel for a particular house (we'll focus on houses now--the relationship parallel is left up the reader and his or her therapist--LOL). The experience of living in a house is certainly influenced by the feel arising from visual cues, but there are practical matters and the tug of conscience--how much energy went into building the house and will go into sustaining it.

Humans are (often) rational beings with the potential ability to make decisions that override or at least modify initial intuitive impulses. Large decisions, like where to live, are usually made with some warning and preparation. It's true that negotiations are sometimes very time sensitive, but actually choosing a house or a neighborhood involves some time and contemplation.

The modification of intuitive feel by more practical considerations based on knowledge and experience occurs throughout the animal kingdom. Humans may do it best, but also have the ability to jump headlong into an intuitive choice.

Consideration and appreciation of multiple facets forming the expectation of experiences living in a particular house should lead to wise decisions. Those may mean that an adorable house is revered for what it is, but is nonetheless deemed not appropriate as a favored choice as a residence. To borrow a Boston song title "It's more than a feeling".

Experience plays an important role. When my sorta ex wife and I moved to Cambria in 1992, we rented a most adorable English looking cottage with panoramic ocean views and soaring Monterey Pines nearby. We first saw it on glorious sunny day and it was purely magical. As time passed we discovered the roof leaked, the walls leaked, the garage had a dirt floor that became mud when that roof leaked too, there was minimal heat and pine trees tended to blow over in the wind storms. From that time forward little adorable English cottages create a different intuitive response in me. I still think they're cute, but the experiences recalled temper any inclination I might have to live in one again, unless I thoroughly checked out the systems beyond the image.

That's the hopeful path for wider adoption of green features in housing. They aren't going to be conspicuously sexy to compete on equal terms with the visual cues that fuel the feel. Nonetheless, if Buyers are made aware that some houses have a substantially smaller carbon footprint than others and that the planet Earth needs all the help it can get to continue providing habitable environments for human existence, that awareness may shape the final decision process.

It's unrealistic to expect buyers to choose ugly houses because they're "green", but they shouldn't need to. Green houses can be just as attractive as any others. There's also the option of taking a striking older home, already in place with embodied energy bought and paid for, and making it more green through retrofits.

These nuances in decision making create an incumbent need among the real estate development and marketing industries to educate the public along new dimensions ranging far beyond the classic way points of curb appeal and floor plan. Yes, that increases the complexity of decisions and will diminish perceived value among homes lacking green features or green potential. Homes have a long lifespan and to merely look the other way in favor of short term commission flow is disingenuous, even for real estate. It's not all about commission. Everything is ultimately about the planet and Mother Earth doesn't work on commission.