Going Green in Commercial Properties

What features are most important to commercial real estate clients?

Utility and operations costs, indoor air quality, efficient use of lighting and windows, doors and furnishings, NAR’s Realtors® and Sustainability: Commercial Report found. Green features in commercial real estate are becoming more prevalent as consumers look to be more environmentally-friendly and save money. Eighteen percent of commercial Realtors® in the survey said green data fields are on their commercial information exchange, compared to 33% who said they are not and 49% who don’t know. For those agents who have these fields, 26% use them to promote energy information, 25% promote green features and 17% promote green certifications. And nearly 70% of respondents said advertising energy-efficiency for a commercial property is somewhat or very valuable.

While green features may be desired by consumers, only 7% of Realtors® said buildings with green certifications spent less time on the market than their counterparts. However, 37% do think green certifications, such as LEED, increase the value, while 32% think there is no impact on the value. Thirty-seven percent of agents said that clients were at least somewhat interested in sustainability.

Moving forward, 49% of respondents said commercial property owners should focus on improving energy efficiency on existing buildings, while 43% of agents are concerned about the lack of property data available about a building’s performance history. Of those agents who had requests for property history information, 75% said clients wanted to know about energy efficient features, 53% wanted to know about green certifications and 42% were curious about a recycling program.

Realtors® surveyed said they considered themselves either average (40%) or low (38%) when asked about their knowledge of energy efficiency and sustainability management for commercial properties.