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Are energy-efficient mortgages the thing of the future?
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Bill Ritter, the former governor of Colorado and current director of the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University, wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal May 22 advocating the merits of energy-efficient mortgages (EEMs) for U.S. homeowners. The more efficient mortgage option is just part of Ritter’s larger goal to cut energy consumption in half by 2030.
EEMs are mortgages that credit a home’s energy efficiency into the mortgage itself. The energy savings are figured into the mortgage in a way that allows borrowers to qualify for higher-cost loans since, with conventional EEMs, lenders can increase the borrower’s income by the same dollar amount as the property’s estimated energy savings.
Besides through conventional lenders, EEMs are also available through federal agencies such as the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchase EEMs on the secondary market.
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