We Would Like to Know Your Opinion

Melbourne, FL – July 22, 2012 – Next week, the annual Southeast Builders Conference will be held in the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. Home builders from sixteen southern states have been invited to come, and LifeStyle Homes will be well represented.

You’ve got to believe that anything we can learn that will make our guaranteed HERS 60 SunSmart(SM) homes a better value for our customers, we will adopt before we get back to Melbourne. The same goes for our truly remarkable Net Zero Energy SunSmartPV(SM) homes that make as much electricity as a family of five will use in a year’s time from the free power of the Sun.

It will be interesting for us, though, because the theme of this year’s SEBC is Green Building. There will be many presentations, we’re sure, about the merits of building green because of the increased sensitivity to environmental preservation that the green philosophy espouses.  We will attend as many of these green sessions as we can and we will listen respectfully, hoping we will learn something that will help us serve our customers better.

It seems to us, though, that the advocates of green building are just that: advocates. They have decided that building green is a good thing and that all builders should take up the cause. We may not be stating their true position in total fairness, but it seems pretty clear that building green is all about the people who want to build green and not very much about the people they want to buy the green homes they want to build.

Don’t get us wrong. We are nowhere near being anti-green. We’re just avidly pro-customer.

For sure, there are customers out there who have adopted the green philosophy with a passion. Bless their hearts. They are willing to pay more for a home so it will have less of an impact on our environment. That is a very noble attitude, and we should all thank them for feeling that way.

If we felt our customers felt that way, we would join the green movement in a heartbeat. But everything we have learned from our customers is that saving money is their primary motivation. If our energy efficient homes can save them money, they will be happy to accept the improved indoor air quality and make the big contribution to environmental preservation that comes with owning a LifeStyle SunSmart(SM) home. But if they had to pay extra to get those benefits, they wouldn’t be so sure.

That’s our opinion today, but not a day goes by that we don’t ask ourselves all over again, “Are we really on the right path?” We’d like to know what your answer to that question would be. Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment. Thank you.