exciting business opportunity!

this week, i am heading to charlotte to get certified as a "green valuation specialist" - aka an appraiser who has been trained to value energy-efficient homes.  i'm excited about this for several reasons...one, i get to stay with our good family friends in charlotte; two, there are no other appraisers in virginia with a green designation (as far as we can find); three, i was reading our newspaper real estate section online just now and came across this article that will hopefully be an awesome business lead!

turns out that while we're not up to speed with the west coast in terms of green building, there are definitely a good number of local builders who are building green homes and trying to promote green building practices throughout the area.  i called the head of the tidewater builders association's green building council, and he is very excited about the prospect of my work in the area.  apparently, builders who are going the extra mile to build green homes aren't necessarily getting appraisers who know a lot about green building/valuation, so that leaves an exciting potentially opportunity for me.  the only setback is that lenders can't really control which appraiser is assigned to which job - it's more of a rotation.  but, hopefully we can come up with some way to have a green-designated appraiser only be allowed to appraise green homes. 

i'm really excited about the possibilities here, especially since i love new construction and would really enjoy getting involved in that field again (instead of mostly resale).  also, this designation will be key if billy ends up ever working for brooks running's corporate office (his dream job), as that will mean a move to washington state, which has lots of green building going on already. 

i'll be sure to post some updates as i get this niche business figured out!!