Eco-Friendly Homesellers Paying a Price ; Energy-Efficient Homes That Depart From Traditional Maine Styles Are Meeting Weak Demand From Homebuyers.

An affordable home warmed by the sun. That should be an easy sell these days, but Win Reed has learned otherwise.

A broker at CHR Realty in Bath, Reed listed an energy-efficient, three-bedroom house in rural Richmond last March. He was disappointed to find buyers turned off by the 24-year-old home's sloping, window-studded roof and modern lines. Reed recently dropped the price to $219,000.

"I haven't found any market for that type of house," he said. "I haven't found anyone looking for a passive solar home."

But energy efficiency is a priority for Will Teer, who is looking for his first home.

Teer and his girlfriend searched for a well-insulated, sun- drenched house with character, for under $250,000 and within commuting distance to Portland. Unsuccessful, they're buying an old farmhouse in Hollis and plan to spend up to $50,000 to renovate it using green design principles, methods and materials that are both energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

With the home-buying season in full swing and high heating costs looming, the experiences of Reed and Teer highlight a disconnect in Maine's housing market: A slim inventory of energy-efficient homes and an uncertain level of demand.

Some Mainers like to think of their state as a leader on energy issues, but that's not true of housing. Fewer than three out of 100 single-family homes built in Maine meet federal Energy Star standards, which are 15 percent more efficient than typical building codes. Maine trails every New England state in this measure.

In a broader sense, Maine's older housing stock, buyer preference for traditional Cape- and Colonial-style homes and historic builder resistance to mandatory energy standards also contribute to the shallow pool, observers say.

That will start to change, beginning next year. A recently passed law requires all new or renovated homes to meet a model energy code developed by the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

But the lack of energy-efficient homes on the market today frustrates Jane Beecher Russo, a broker at Tim Flaherty Real Estate in Westbrook. She is Maine's first certified EcoBroker, a designation in a national program that trains Realtors on the fine points of selling sustainable and energy-efficient properties.

Russo worked with Teer to find an energy-efficient home. When she searched multiple listings for leads, she could find only 13 homes, from Sanford to Bar Harbor, that fit the bill. They ranged in price from $219,000 to $1.8 million.

"It's in its infancy stages in Maine now," she said. "It's going to come here, but it may be 10 years before it's the normal way of building, like in other parts of the country."

Custom-built homes that are very energy efficient have become common in Maine, but typically it takes plenty of green to be green. One example is a demonstration house for sale in Freeport - for $1.1 million - that has won regional awards for its sustainable design.

By contrast, 71 percent of all homes built last year in Nevada and 64 percent in Alaska meet Energy Star standards. Closer to Maine, 35 percent of new Rhode Island homes and 24 percent in Vermont hit the Energy Star benchmarks for insulation levels, window efficiency and other upgrades.

The problem in Maine, brokers say, is that most older homes are poorly insulated, and some of the newer ones that have low energy costs also feature unpopular designs or unconventional heating systems, such as wood stoves. Only two people have looked at the Richmond home, for instance, which features large south-facing windows, and a shed-type roof line topped by a clerestory, a narrow band of windows.

Win Reed tells people he visited the house last winter and stood around in his shirt sleeves on a sunny day. The owners kept the place above 72 degrees with four cords of wood, and never used the electric heat.

No buyer interest, though. It makes Reed a bit cynical when he hears people complaining about high energy prices.

"People are into energy efficiency as long as it's changing a light bulb to a compact fluorescent," he said. "But if it involves wood, or they start to wonder what happens if the sun doesn't shine, well, there just isn't a market for it."

Collette Conley can sympathize with Reed.

A Realtor at Re/Max by the Bay in Portland, Conley's listing a four-bedroom, passive solar house with cedar siding and an attached garage in Westbrook, for $278,000. It was on the market for a year before she took it over in March.

The house isn't perfect, she admits; some windows need repair, and interior paint and flooring needs attention. But it's a lot of house in a nice location. And it's heated by the sun, a wood stove and a back-up oil furnace.

"A lot of folks like the square footage," she said. "But in Maine, people prefer a Cape or Colonial. In California, this house would have gone quickly."

Like Reed, Conley hasn't gotten any mileage out of the home's energy features.

"I've never had a client say, 'I want a passive solar home,'" she said.

Linda Gifford hasn't heard that, either. Gifford is a spokeswoman for the Maine Association of Realtors. Members aren't calling her to discuss energy issues. In some parts of the country, multiple listing services are set up so brokers and home buyers can search specifically for energy-related features. There's no demand for that in Maine now.

"If it's something that brokers or consumers wanted, we could do it," Gifford said.

It's complicated, because buyers do want lower heating bills, Russo said. They just want efficiency to be an unseen part of the package, blending with higher priorities, like a cape-style house or a kitchen with cherry cabinets and granite counters.

Russo is facing this issue in Windham, where she's listing a new, contemporary-style house for $314,000. Russo is pushing the oversized kitchen, attached garage and wooded location. Later, she'll point out walls crammed with 11 inches of insulation, a heat exchanger to maintain air quality and the sunny exposure that helps keep the house cozy with an estimated 367 gallons of oil.

"I try to make energy efficiency a bonus feature of the house, rather than the main feature," she said. "For the majority of people, it's not on their radar screen."

It's odd, Russo lamented, because Mainers have a reputation for being frugal, and energy-efficient design is part of New England's heritage. The saltbox, with its south-facing window wall, central fireplace and long-sloping north roof - that was how farmers built 200 years ago.

And in the end, that's what Teer discovered.

The Cape-style farmhouse Teer has under contract has an attached ell and barn. To bring it up to date, Teer plans to blow insulation into the walls, install high-efficiency windows and Energy Star appliances. He'll specify sunstainably harvested lumber and low- volatility paint for renovations. In time, solar panels could help supply hot water.

But as much as he cares about energy and sustainable building, Teer said he wouldn't buy a contemporary solar house.

"I think a lot of these passive solar homes are aesthetically ugly," he said. "For the mainstream market, they're not going to sell."

Staff writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or:

tturkel@pressherald.com

[Sidebar]

HOW MAINE COMPARES

More than 172,000 single-family homes that meet Energy Star standards were built in 2006, according to the federal government. These homes use 15 percent less energy than conventional homes. They account for 12 percent of all homes built last year, but some states have greater concentrations. Here is a sampling:

Nevada 71

Alaska 64

Iowa 57

Texas and Hawaii 37

Rhode Island 35

Vermont 24

New Hampshire 17

Maine less than 3%

Source: www.energystar.gov

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