Hard Sell

From environmentalists to builders, many say statewide home energy audits could soothe our ailing housing market -- so why are Nevada realtors fighting the new standards?

Las Vegas City Life - 3.4.10
by JASON WHITED

With the Las Vegas real estate market in the toilet, it seems many Nevadans are looking for anything to stop the long, precipitous slide.

For the past several years, an unlikely alliance of builders, environmentalists and state lawmakers has developed what they've called a winning solution: required energy audits on the sale of each new home in the state. By the time new state requirements governing these inspections take effect next January, experts said, the audit requirements -- initially passed by the Legislature in 2007 and updated by state lawmakers in 2009 -- could help establish entirely new selling points for the tens of thousands of homes still standing empty. Yet, as these interest groups, policy experts and businessmen work feverishly with state energy officials to flesh out energy audit standards in advance of the 2011 deadline, many among this ad hoc, green consortium complain that local realtors are pushing back hard, slowing the possible transformation of Las Vegas from an anemic residential market into a robust, energy-efficient money maker.

"Local governments support this, builders support this, we support this, even the governor's energy office is trying to make this happen. The only real opposition to this is coming from the realtors," said Scot Rutledge, executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, a group that's worked closely with builders and government officials on the new energy audit standards.

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