KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Market Place for Green Homes.

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

You know, is my home going to last longer? Is my home going to be more beneficial to me in some ways? Is it going to be easier to maintain? Am I going to have lower energy bills and water bills? Is it going to be just cooler? Like, it's going to be like really interesting and fun to have smart technology that also just happen to be environmentally friendly.

Knowing that information as soon as as as as as soon as possible in your home search is more beneficial to you than too far down the line. when you're doing a home inspection or energy on it. Hello, this is Izumit Tanaka with Home Green Homes podcast. Today's guest is Carrie Klaus. She's the founder of Realty Sage, which is an online platform specifically for green homes, like my last listing. It provides information about different green features and benefits for both buyers and

sellers, as well as some related professionals. I am very interested in learning about her journey of putting this platform together and growing it. And I feel fortunate to have another kindred soul in the world of real estate. Here's what she has to share with us. So thank you so much, Carrie, first of all, for being here. She's actually calling in all the way from Thailand, which is so amazing. I'm so jealous that she's living in Thailand right now. But besides that, Carrie, first of all, tell us who you are.

What's your background? Well, thank you very much for having me and working with my very odd time zone schedule. Still getting used to it. But yeah, I have a long background working on sustainable economic development. I got into real estate pretty early on. and my working career. And I really enjoyed working with customers, you know, buyers and sellers who started asking questions about how energy efficient properties were.

And it sort of excited me. And then I did a renovation of my own house. And that's when things took off. Okay. And it was the pain of going through renovation. You learn a lot. And that was sort of impetus for. everything since that.

So where was this home that you renovated? So it's a property that I still own. It's in Arlington, Virginia. Okay. About five kilometers outside of or from the White House. Oh, okay. Yeah. And, you know, that area is obviously known for having very old properties.

Right. And so the property that my husband and I had purchased was an adorable little property, but definitely needed some renovations. And, you know, we took some time and figure out what we wanted to do. And but it wasn't just kind of the design of the property. It was actually what we wanted to do with making it more energy efficient and making it for the future. We had no intention of selling any time soon. but if we did, if we wanted to, we still wanted to put an investment into it that made sense. And this sort of sparked that whole concept.

And it was back in around 2006, 2007. So this is very early time. Yeah. So the renovation took place. We put in tens of thousands of dollars more than we really needed to in order to choose more energy-efficient and water. efficient features and more sustainable materials and and just do a better job. Yeah. And I sat back and I said, okay, friends and family, come visit my new renovation.

It's really beautiful. And I put little placards around the house. And I said, okay, in the bathroom, it has like all these like pool water saving features. And I'm like, you know, if we do go to sell this property, it's going to be a huge problem for me to explain what I've just explained to my family and friends. Yes, yeah. But to all the potential buyers out there. And I said, oh, this is a problem.

How do we fix this? And so that's sort of that, that was the very beginning. And then, yeah, after that, it took a lot of time because, honestly, in that, that time here, there was an economic recession, a really significant one. And things were really shifting in a real estate industry. I mean, and it took time for, first of all, the real estate industry to get back on track. And for people who start having the ability to start adopting more energy efficient homes and having the subsidies and tax incentives to do so.

So that was a huge push. And when those pieces started falling into place, that's when I started really getting more serious about creating a website. that help for people to understand what energy efficient homes are, what is a net zero energy property, what is a passive, solar, or discipline property? What are these things? Yeah, right, right. So that's, so Realty Sage was one of the solutions that you came out with for the problems that you identified. So tell me about Realty Sage. Like I said in the beginning, this is a platform that I listed my last green listings with because this is the place that people can go and find green properties. So tell me why you chose this platform of creating a platform like this and how did you even do that?

That just feels daunting for me. I'm so grateful that you've started that, but, you know, to think about, okay, I'm going to create a platform for, like, you can search on the national basis. So I want to hear about the journey that you took on. But journey is a painful one. I mean, it's one of these things where you start off thinking, okay, I'm going to go this direction. How do I educate people? and really just to share with them, you know, the buyers about why this home has the features that they may want. Maybe they want a healthier home.

Maybe they want a more energy home or smart home. You know, they want all these cool things and our properties. But how do you, how do you do that? How do you get to that point where you can educate them without just putting a whole bunch of texts, you know, and people have to read it and figure it out? So that was a process. It started off first as it called Viva Green Homes. I had a, you know, a very simple star system and said, okay, you know, probably four stars versus five stars, you know, slightly has fewer features.

And I said, you know, this has got to change. We've got to progress this. So the platform change into Realty Sage. Sage obviously has double meaning. It means wisdom and obviously the color green. Yeah. So, and when you're a realty sage, you're wise about real estate. So that's, that is the basis of the platform is to help educate people. And in order to do that, and not just educate people, it's helping to incentivize sellers to want to invest in their properties so that they can get the return on their investment. That's a hard, hard choice for people to say, I wouldn't mind putting solar on my property,

but am I going to get it back when I go to sell my property? Am I going to lose thousands of dollars in doing so? And unless you have a marketplace in order to actually explain the benefits of solar and how much cost savings it really adds up, it's hard to sometimes justify that for sellers too. Yeah. So it was an evolution. Yeah.

And the stage score is much more complicated. It's based on hundreds of features in a property from energy efficiency, water, design, location. And it's, I think it's the easiest way to explain it as saying it's like the walk score, but for your green home. Yeah. Oh, green is this property. And take it just a little step further. We included livability categories because you can have a home that has, you know, as a stage score of 90, which is really amazing. It's a beautiful property. But you can

also have another property that has a stage score of 90 and go, okay, so what's the difference? And some properties will have features that help it become more healthy, you know, better indoor air quality, for example. And some are very high tech and smart. And so it saves energy and water because the technology features it has. So we have the livability categories that help people go a little step further with the stage score. I see. So what year did you launch Realty Sage? So that's an evolution too.

Yeah. So it started off again, you know, in Viva Green Homes. And that was approximately 2014-2015, just sort of very conceptually, very basic. website. And then Realty Sage came about in probably around 2016-ish, I want to say. But later. And then actually sort of at the beginning of pandemic, which is not the best to launch something about real estate. Yeah. We launched the Realty Stage prose portion of the website. It was a further expansion of the concept that, you know, this, when you look at real estate, it's a holistic process. You know, it's not just about finding a property online,

but you need to work with professionals who know how to market the property, like, who can put their listings on Realty Stage, but also people who are working with home buyers throughout the process, getting financing, working through the home inspections and appraisals. So real estate pros helps connect real estate agents with home buyers and sellers. And we're expanding it to other professionals as well. And that came about again around 2020 when things were a little really interesting to see how things were to work out in real estate. Yeah, but I'm thinking this must have taken you. massive outreach, you know, because you're not just covering one area of, you know, your market.

This is all over the country, right? So what did you do? I don't actually remember how I found you. I know I'm a realty, say, pro, one of your pro. But I can't actually remember how I found you. So do you, do you remember? Well, this is a great point. So we connected, I think, actually, a couple years ago for some reason.

Maybe you had a little thing. I don't. I think it was three years ago, actually, because it was just when I moved my brokerage to my current brokerage, EXP. And I know that I did some paperwork with them for you. So it must be three years. I think that sounds right. That's probably when we were launching the Realty Stage Pros. Yeah, yeah.

So that seems to coincide with the timeframe for sure. So what I did, so this goes back to when I first launched the sort of conceptual idea of website, okay, we're going to do this website with some start, you know, stars and ratings. What happened was I wrote a simple blog about what my vision was here. Oh my gosh, I have a vision that, you know, we have real estate as one of the largest, most impact industries in our country. And yet we are seriously deficient on providing the information that consumers need. Yeah.

And you go to a grocery store. I'm backing up for a minute because it's important for people to really understand how seriously deficient we are. You go to a grocery store and you pick up a package and you can look at every single ingredient that's in that. Right. Yeah. And you're like, oh my God, I didn't know there is, you know, 50 things in this

Cracker. Yeah. Yeah. And the same thing happens. You go to buy a car and it tells you how the miles per gallon. Right. Yeah. All the features.

Yeah. And, you know, electric vehicles and how, what the range is. There's lots of great information before you've even like purchase the property. Exactly. Yeah. And then we look at real estate and it still is today. I mean, my site and a few other niche sites are the exception. but real estate is seriously underserved and you look at some of the big big guys in the industry

and you scroll on their websites and the information you get her oh it's got some pretty pictures and you know it has a condo fee i know what that is and allows pets or something like there's some very basic piece information mostly it's pictures and that is seriously unfortunate given and how impactful this industry is and how, if you think about what people spend their money on, homes are probably one of the most expensive things they're ever going to purchase. And we still don't give them enough information. Yeah, yeah. So, so it really, it really was a, was a process where I said,

we've got to talk about this. And I wrote this blog. And I put this blog out there. And within the first couple of weeks of putting a blog out there, the EPA's Energy Star reached out to me. Oh, wow. Lead for homes reached out for me. Another other industry leaders reached out to me. My very first blog, I have this idea.

We have got to do better. And they were all super supportive because at the end of the day, we're all working towards the same goal. And kind of fast forward, that is where we are today with Realty Stage. We, you know, try to integrate as much as we can into one platform. And I'm not trying to be everything, but I am trying to say that, you know, there are real estate agents out there who are doing amazing jobs for their clients. There are home builders out there doing really good, cool stuff with building properties. There are certifications out there that people should understand and prioritize.

How do we put that all together so that we have a place that people can understand that and then be able to select and work with people and make better decisions? Yeah. Wouldn't that be great when all the MLS around the country have all the green feature buttons or something that you can automatically feed into your platform so that we can go to your website and look for all the, you know, properties. Yeah. So this is, so this is a good thing that you brought up, actually. I think I'm having really had the conversations with industry leaders over the years and having a background in real estate myself, you know, that doesn't solve the problem. MLS field, greenfields don't even kind of solve a problem. There are a number of issues, actually.

You can have an MLS that has all the possible green fields you can imagine. Let's put it out there. And you have a real estate agent who goes in there and puts in the wrong information. And now you have a problem. So it's, it's, and that does happen. I mean, there's a, there's a story that I've shared a few times. So anybody's heard this. They, they've heard.

I haven't. Yeah, the story goes, and it's from a, it's from another industry leader. So I can't share it as my own. But the story goes that there was a property that was being sold or being listed. And it was like built in the 1970s, which is not known for it, you know, yeah, practically green properties. And this industry leader, she went and noticed that it was supposed to be a, it was listed.

And the MLS field had a net zero energy field. And it was looked basically as a net zero energy field. is a net zero energy property and she's like not adding up yeah yeah this doesn't make sense the 1970s property is a net zero energy property so she called the listing agent and said hey what's up with us and that agent said well i just didn't know what that was so i put a zero there i don't know what the rating is i put a zero well a zero and a zero is there zero is a very good score Yeah. Wow.

For her reading. Hers rating is a home energy rating system, which rates of homes. And zero is amazing. Yeah. Rating, actually. So we have this problem where, yes, I totally advocate for greening all our illnesses. But you have that issue.

But then you have the next step. You have the next step, which is, well, if you have all the fields in there, who's going to show them. And how are you going to still explain it, right? Yeah. So even if you had a big guy out there who, big, you know, real estate site that had, oh, it's, it has a zero for the first score. What does that still mean?

Yeah. What does it still mean to the average buyer? You know, what does that actually mean? So, yeah. So I, I advocate for all levels of improvement. Well, I really appreciate that because then that falls. onto our shoulder as agents to know what those things mean and, you know, be able to explain that to our clients, you know, whether it's seller or buyers.

I mean, like my MLS in Los Angeles have the green feature boxes, right? You can put her score, you can put certain certification, not all the certifications are listed quite yet, but some of the most recognized like lead, green energy, start, build it green, and things like that. But you can't search them. You can search by those things. That when you go to the search page, the green feature doesn't even show up for me to click

to see if there's anything that has her score of blah, blah, blah. So I know there's, we still have a long way to go, right? Carrie, you know, we are. We do. Yeah, but, but I'm really, um, really proud to be part of this group of us who are doing what we're doing. So it's been a few years since the realty stage has been up and running. And how has the market been? What's the response you are getting?

It's been really positive and almost overwhelmingly so sometimes. And that's a good thing. But what happens is it's been very positive. It's been growing. But I wish I could clone myself is what I wish, actually. Because I think there still needs to be so much more work done. And there needs to be so much more opportunity. I would love to have realty stage be a greater opportunity to post more green professionals.

Again, whether it's builders or architects or certifiers. or whatever it might be because that's what the that's what we get are people who say you know I'm doing great things how can I how can I you know collaborate so I think that that that that obviously is not a bad problem to have it's just it's just also making sure that we're not overwhelming consumers you know with too much and how do you simplify so it's been growing and it's been positive um right Now we have over 120,000 real estate agents. Oh, wow. Realty page pros.

We've got thousands of home listings on Realty Sage itself. And again, like I said, we're trying to expand. Oh, thousands. I don't actually know. Okay. I go back and check every so often. That's great. That's great.

Yeah. And we're expanding into other professionals as well. Really? Like what? Yeah. We have home builders and architects and we have interior designers and we have all sorts of people. It's part of our next step, you know, honestly. It's trying to integrate that in a way that's simple and easy to navigate. So I feel like I have a job for at least a little while longer.

So my question is, like, you, in the beginning, you told me that you, you have people asking you about energy efficiency and stuff. I mean, that alone is surprising to me. Like, you know, this is way back when you started, like, thinking about this. So at least 10 years ago, more, right? I mean, do you, do you see, like, you said there's maybe 1,000 listings on your platform. Is there any concentrated areas that people? are more receptive to even putting them on your platform or even going to find properties on your platform. Do you see any regional trends? So there's two parts of this. So we are actually, we, we are a

bright MLS spender, which is we actually have the listings from the Washington, D.C. region, the same as you would see on other large real estate website. So that, that, that, That's tens of thousands of listings there. Sure. Throughout the, throughout the country, we have listings everywhere pretty much. We rarely have them in Alaska. Oh, wow. Great.

We've had a few. But I think, I don't think that it's surprising that some time, that green real estate follows the same path as any other trends in real estate. So Florida is seeing its kind of heyday of green homes now because, first of all, they've had some incentives to promote solar and things like that. But builders in general are realizing that, you know, buyers want this. And there's so that's just the green part of it. But you can look at trends across the country and know very clearly that Florida grew in its population as far as residents more than any other state in the last few years.

So it's not just similar. You have the demand and the demand follows also with the real estate industry itself. So obviously California is doing a great job. California has the mandates that they've always set the trends as far as being more environmentally friendly and setting the mandate. So California's NetSierra Energy Ready property mandates really help set the tone for other states to follow suit. But I'll tell you, it's not surprising that the areas in the country that have essentially the most opportunity to build new properties is where you're going to be most. most green property show up. Yeah. And because they they will build, you know, a whole subdivision and Canada and they'll energy star the whole sole subdivision. So there's new energy start

properties right there. You know, that's kind of where we're seeing things. New York always has really, really outstanding, you know, high-rise, lead certified, you know, Honda building, for example and things like that. So the trends shift a little bit, but it's really just not surprising to me when we do see areas that have more green properties. Yeah. That's following regular real estate. Yeah.

Yeah. It's definitely growing for, you know, definitely growing. It just doesn't feel fast enough for us, you know. It's like, can we speed up a little bit? Yeah. a little faster. Yeah. Yeah.

It's definitely growing faster every year now. Mm-hmm. That had been the last decade, obviously. You know, so we're getting there. And I do think the government plays a big role in this. You know, if the government has subsidies or if there's mandates or whatever, that helps us for the economy. in that sense. It says, okay, we need to have more renewable energy, something like that.

And now we've got more solar installers and now provide jobs that way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, currently we have Inflation Reduction Act. So that's hopefully, you know, speeding up some of the improvement process. And I'm really hoping. So tell me what's your vision for? the future for realty state say what are you envisioning for yourself with this platform well you know i am i really one of the things that i've been really enjoyed um is connecting people and you know i will meet somebody in industry and say oh you've got to meet this other person you guys have such synergies, you've got to connect. And that's the way I am sort of my personal life and in my community. I've been a community organizer. I've worked with getting people together

and doing things and building kind of momentum towards some sort of efforts, you know, whether it's kind of fun events or other other kind of matters. And so what I envision my company is not just similar to my own personality, which is bringing people together. And I would like to just continue to do that. You know, our tagline is a resource for everything eco-friendly and real estate. So let's bring it on. Let's bring everything together. I don't want to build everything myself.

I just want to connect people together and the companies together and give people the best option. So if people are very good at building amazing properties, let me help you show that. Let me help you market that. If you're an amazing real estate agent, who does really great work with our buyers and sellers, let me help you get there and work with those clients. So that's my continued effort. It's a process. So is there anything that I can do to help you? You know, it's a mutual support, but is there anything I can do as a green agent in California to help us spread this even further?

You know, there's always opportunities just to share what we're doing. Listings are free on our website. Signing up as a real estate agent is free to do so. So why not? And, you know, I think it's just a matter of sharing what we're doing. And like I said, so many people are so incredibly positive about it, that they want to participate. Why not?

It's a good thing. And I think in general, getting other entities on board, you know, the private sector versus the public sector, they move in different speeds. So I think people who work with their, whether working on boards or where they're working kind of in their local governments, trying to have those conversations say, we've got to do better. At the end of the day, it's a trickle-down kind of thing.

It helps me, helps others continue our work. So keep spreading the word and keep having those really good conversations with public officials and saying we need to be better and how can I do better? Those are great things. The public and private sector have got to work together on this. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So my last question for you is that obviously you need sellers and buyers, right?

So how are you reaching out to sellers and buyers who, you know, who may not know about this platform? And if anybody is interested in, you know, particularly specifically interested in, oh, I want a home that's green. I want a home that's sustainably built. How do we reach, I mean, how are you reaching to that? audience. Well, I think it goes back to how connected I am with other people and other companies. So I have a decent network of partners and always looking to expand more. But with my partners, I have people who are doing podcast. I have people who I know who are writing, you know, have mostly content and really you wonderful eco lifestyle blogs and information resources.

And working with them, we're helping to do collaborative efforts, where I'm helping to showcase their efforts, but they're coming back and saying, hey, you know, I'm not everything either. You know, I provide the content, but you provide some listings. So why don't me, you know, it's always a mutually beneficial collaboration. And so that's how we're helping to spread the word. So we have people who go to different websites and different partners of mine and can find us. And yeah, and we have people who participate in other ways, you know, have videos, and we can put those on our website. To share how being a green agent is a spectacular thing, all sorts of wonderful ways to collaborate with that.

Well, I am looking forward to keep collaborating with you for, you know, many years to come. And so lastly, just give me a message that you can share with the audience and why we should be looking at realty sales, especially for people who may not be so keen yet about green homes or, you know, sustainably or high performance. forming homes, whatever we want to call it. There are a lot of names. That's part of the confusion. So I think I would tell anybody who is, you know, wanting to know more about

realty sage or wanting to know more about green homes, you know, I'd go back to an analogy of you want to know what's in your food. You want to know how your car is going to perform. You want to know, you want to know more information to make better choices. Who doesn't? I mean, that's just, you know, is my home going to last longer? Is my home going to be more beneficial to me in some ways? Is it going to be easier to maintain?

Am I going to have lower energy bills and water bills? Is it going to be just cooler? Like, it's going to be like really interesting and fun to have smart technology that also just happens to be environmentally friendly. Knowing that information, as soon as, as, as soon as possible in your home search is more beneficial to you than too far down the line when you're doing a home inspection or energy on it later. So I want to tell people if you can get more information, if you can know better, you can do

better. And for the sellers out there who've already decided they want to like add solar or become more energy efficient with their, you know, systems and things like that, hang on. we're getting there. We want to market your property. We want to make sure that people get all information so that they can understand all the cool things and all the good things you're doing to your homes. So that's pretty much what I would say to all those people. Yeah. Thank you so much. That's very much what I would have expected. Thank you so much, Carrie, for your time and coming on my podcast with me.

I'm very honored to have you. And I wish I, wish you the best and like I said I look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. This was Izumi Tanaka with Home Green Homes Podcast until my next episode.