 ThinkTek Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. Howard Wiig, Code Green, ThinkTek Hawaii. Do we have the best of all possible worlds for you? Today? Answer? Yes. How about increasing the value of your home while your utility bill drops like a rock and your home is not only less expensive, it's generally quieter, cleaner, more healthy. Best of all possible worlds to describe this and more. I have two prime lending guests, Lisa Heinemann and Miss International herself and America Madrid. That is a remarkable name indeed. Welcome to the program, young ladies. Thank you for having us. And what we're going to be talking about is what I call a green mortgage. They as professionals call it something much more professional sounding than that. And what we're doing is including generally in a loan for more home improvements the measures that will reduce your utility bill now and forever more. So let's bring up the first slide and these ladies are with prime lending and what is let's let's do the next slide to properly introduce them. I mean this is impressive here. This is renovation financing. Will somebody please tell me what renovation financing is? Renovation financing is when you finance not only the purchase of the home but also the additional funds needed to increase your value with your solar or your solar water heater appliances etc. So this would up on the roof include say a solar water heater and photovoltaic panels and what if the roof turns out to have some some issues this is an older home. We can do any roof or roof repairs. Roof repairs and if you were to lay down a new roof what color would you make it? White. Definitely white or if white is not allowable in the neighborhood as light colored as possible because as you well know if on a hot August day you go up on a roof that is very dark and has a rough texture and you take the temperature of the surface of that roof what temperature is that? Over a hundred degrees. Try 178 degrees is the highest we've gotten. Put down a white coating over that very same roof white width. What's the secret ingredient? Titanium dioxide and your temperature will drop from 178 to about 70 degrees. About 105. 105. The delta T being? 73. 73 degrees very good and furthermore that's not all when you put photovoltaics or solar water heater on the roof your shading that portion of the roof what temperature is that shaded part of the roof in relation to the ambient temperature outside? It's going to be lower. Could even be lower because there's little breeze blowing through so that's what you will pay for or lend up on the roof what what sort of projects you have going on inside the home? You can include other energy efficient repairs or upgrades at a solar water heater energy efficient appliances and the does energy star mean anything to you. There are energy star rated appliances and there's a certain company in town that will actually give you rebates when you purchase energy star appliances and the name of that outfit is Hawaii energy very good so you're financing but you're actually getting more money from for what you're financing here and when a homeowner has a vastly reduced utility bill is he better able or less better able to pay his or her mortgage? Well definitely better able. They're a better because their cash flow is vastly improved. Correct. Very good. So why don't we go to the next slide here. Renovation lending is growing. Oh that's yeah this comes under the heading of renovation lending and next slide. Okay somebody tell me about one loan one closing why in the world would we want to do that when we're going green? When loan closing? Yeah. Well because you're saving you're saving money you're just like saving energy you also have more cash flow because you don't have to get secondary financing to add any energy efficient upgrades. And if you did get secondary financing something bad would happen to you what's that? Well not necessarily there's there's different options but one of the benefits of one loan and one closing is you only pay closing costs one time. That's what I was referring to you don't have to pay closing costs. In some cases it does make sense to get a secondary like a home equity line of credit also though that may be the right option for someone who already has a very low interest rate so yeah that's what we do is we meet with people to find out what they are looking for the upgrades they want to have they show us their construction contract and then we find the programs that are available to them discuss benefits and drawbacks of both ways. Good point yeah yeah if you have a very very low interest mortgage by all means you want to hang on to that and then with a line of credit you would draw down from that only as much as you needed if you want if you could do this only in increments say your energy star appliances and then you go up under roof and so forth. You could do that very good and I did a good deal of searching of local banks because this makes so gosh darn much sense plus I'm with the state of Hawaii and the governor's goal our goal is 100% clean electrical energy by the year 2045 what if tens of thousands of homes took advantage of your offering and they retrofitted retrofitted retrofitted up on the roof and in the home what would happen to the utility use in the electrical use what would decrease it would decrease Hawaiian electric supplies power by with different power plants some out on the Waianae coast some by Pearl Harbor and if you could just get a couple tens of thousands of homes to do what we're talking about they could shut down the least efficient of their power plants wouldn't that be nice that would be fabulous yeah yeah yeah and keep more money in their pockets it's good for the whole economy and Hawaiian electric is steering in that direction anyway and Howard our loan programs are not limited to people that are purchasing it's also available to folks who are refinancing our folks with older homes maybe they want to make them energy efficient and take advantage of the rebates very good I live in an older home I I can speak from experience that way why don't we go to the next slide somebody want to talk about this looks very nice ugly is not good well again with the high cost of housing it's nice to live in a house that you love right so in addition to all the energy efficient upgrades that you can do there's other things that can be done to that also make the house look pretty so this is important also right but you can get new windows you know any of the things that you can imagine that you want to do to a home we likely have a program that could work out for it I'm glad you mentioned the windows because especially say a south-facing window or a west-facing window what happens at different times of the day to that window the sun strikes it and say it's your old single pane glass there's a certain amount of radiant heat that strikes that pane of glass when the sun's directly on it how much of that heat gets into the interior with the single pane 87% Wow now if people wanted to do new windows you would specify because you're so Akamai you would specify high performance windows that can let in as little as 25% of the sun's heat isn't that nice if they have air conditioning they can drop that air conditioning use way way way way down or if they don't have air conditioning they're gonna be even more comfortable so I'm glad you mentioned those those windows there yeah and in addition to everything looking nice and pretty there yep and also with low down payment options there's there's renovation programs available for government loans including for veterans and conventional and even high balance or jumbo loans sounds like I better jump in here yeah that's exactly what what I forgot there so why don't we move to the next slide please okay now here the this is where you ladies shine say something about this well you know you may want the kitchen in the big picture but maybe you can only afford the kitchen in the little picture so now you can have both you know I mean you can buy the lower cost you know the lower purchase price and incorporate the cost of the the completed kitchen and you know have both you just got more house for less money more house for less money with energy saving appliances and I noticed that this is a kitchen what is the biggest well the biggest energy user in a kitchen is a refrigerator here or not oh here's a little factoid for you if you trade in an old old refrigerator for an energy star refrigerator of the same size even though the new refrigerator has all the bells and whistles what is the energy consumption of say a 20 year old fridge versus a brand new energy star fridge oh geez it can't be good it's you decrease your energy use by 75% with all the bells and whistles and there are now we used to have stoves that had heating elements and you turn the stove on and the heating element would get red now there's a new type of stove actually it's been around on the market for some years now what what is that c o n v e c convection convection what is the ratio of an old-fashioned heating stove to a convection so is it still 75 yeah it's a significant decrease so of course when you're renovating your kitchen you would specify convection stoves yeah very good so let's go to the the next slide we're moving right along here benefits of renovation somebody wax eloquent about this well the benefits of renovation there's a lot of things right so you're gonna be saving money monthly on your utility bills right which helps you with the mortgage payment that you have you can bargain by paying less the market price meaning maybe you look for a house that needs some fixing up right maybe it's got good bones but it needs new appliances it needs a new roof and so you're not paying for the fact that someone went in and renovated it completely and is tacking on their fees for that right so it is possible to save money that way also and and also while increasing the value of the home correct absolutely yeah it may be getting into a neighborhood that you was out of reach you know because of cost you may be able to get into that neighborhood or get a bigger house mm-hmm yeah which people have their starter homes and then as they have families they of course they want more square footage yeah and customizing it specific to your needs so if you need say a handicap accessible bathroom or something like that you can get all these things done mm-hmm okay well on that cheery note we need to take a break code green think tech Hawaii Lisa Heinemann and the international girl drift back in a minute hello everyone I'm DeSoto Brown the co-host of human humane architecture which is seen on think tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. and with the show's host Martin Despeng we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live but other aspects of our life not only here in Hawaii but internationally as well so join us for human humane architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on think tech Hawaii hey stand the energy man here on think tech Hawaii and they won't let me do political commentary so I'm stuck doing energy stuff but I really like energy stuff so I'm gonna keep on doing it so join me every Friday on stand the energy man at lunchtime at noon on my lunch hour we're gonna talk about everything energy especially if it begins with a word hydrogen we're gonna definitely be talking about it we'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner how we can make the world a better place just basically save the planet even miss america can't even talk about stuff like that anymore we got it nailed down here so we'll see you on Friday and noon with stand the energy man well welcome back Howard Wigg code green think tech Hawaii my beautiful guest today Lisa Heineman and America Madrid of prime lending and I believe this is the only lending institute in the state of Hawaii and visitors please correct me I wish I were wrong that specialize in green mortgages and we have been talking about green mortgages and you offer a seminar sometimes in your office for some reason the date August 21st comes to mind what's going on on August 21st we have a seminar for realtors who want to help their buyers learn about not just the renovation program but also from Hawaii energy about the rebates and benefits that their clients can get and are you gonna have anybody from the energy office there yes a very good yeah I'll recommend somebody for you and your office is we can do a little plug here your office is located oh was it on one of the slides your office I don't think so it is more located in the IBM building mm-hmm and the IBM building was designed by this comes up every single time we talked to someone mm-hmm Vladimir Ossipoff there you go yeah a Russian ironically he comes from a super super cold climate and he sees as an architect and he sees the potential for Hawaii in a way that the local architects did not and around the IBM building is a standing about three feet out from the walls is a SCR EEN is there a screen outside all kinds of patterns yeah yeah that's called the screen the design he's referring to the design on the outside of the building yeah yeah yeah oh the honeycomb and the the purpose there was to make it a really outstanding building and then a lot of the Sun's heat gets reflected back instead of penetrating to the to the wall so that's a very appropriate that you should be in the IBM building yeah so I had before me something called residential green valuation tools is this something that you people use we don't we don't get involved in that part of it usually the contractors so when when we do the loan the borrower will hire a contractor and then they'll put together their wants and needs and determine what they get so they probably use that type of thing okay and what if the contractor doesn't use this well our what we order the inspection to appraise the home it's going to be ordered subject to the upgrades and that's how it will be evaluated based on the completed repairs or upgrades and this involves a checklist I imagine check check check this that countertops yeah the appraiser has a list of things that they review so they'll they'll take the construction contract and then they'll value it based on the after improved the improvements that were made or are going to be made going to be made yeah correct which brings up the Hawaii appraisal Institute I have ID how much sway do you have with them I have offered to speak to them quite a few times and I've gotten zero response we have no sway we don't we don't contact the appraisers directly I think you're not allowed we're not allowed to write yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we don't even get to choose the appraiser so I can see you know the conflict of interest there so then in the abstract don't you think it would be a good idea if in the appraisers checklist of looking for all the valuations and devaluations of a home that they include solar water heating check photovoltaics check we do see energy star appliances we do see if there's solar we do see that in the appraisal and how are all appraisals like that do they all include water heating photovoltaics you know just just on the checklist not all homes have it it's just the when you have your appraisal report done they come up with their value you know they they compare it with other homes so some have some do not have and so again I come back to the checklist aren't they either check check check or not not check yeah yeah and in that checklist are energy star appliances included I'm not sure how they read the appliances that way but if there's a house that has inferior upgrades like you know again this should all come from an appraiser not us but I mean based on what we've seen if somebody has a inferior condition they won't get as high of a value as somebody who has a superior condition or superior upgrades does that make sense and superior upgrades because you people look for this would include those energy efficient appliances well we don't require energy efficient appliances but that would be but we do see that there is a demand from a lot of our customers they want it because they like the decrease but we don't require it yeah but you certainly give it brownie points well we don't but we do look at the overall the appraised value we do look at that you know that is part of the evaluation yeah whatever the total value comes in and this is something that's confusing to me apparently even though you people are energy efficiency experts you know the value well we're not energy efficiency experts where we do we do more good yeah we find it we depend on experts like you yes and contractors and things like that but what we what we do is we have products available so that people can upgrade their homes to be energy efficient I guess is what we should buy by products available you mean there's option a option B option C there's loan programs current yeah different loan programs that are available that can accommodate those and that that includes I think we had it in one of the first slides you have a name for that enter an energy efficient product well there's energy efficient there there are energy efficient options available for almost all of our programs so there's not just one program okay okay right yeah we have several literature yeah we have quite a few so again I can you when you're considering a client's eligibility for a mortgage can you factor in the fact that they have all these energy efficient features and say ah this person's utility bill is going to be very low therefore they are more eligible for a loan or how does that factor in no yeah we don't actually take utility bills into consideration for qualifying for most loans with the exception of VA does have a slot where we do fill that in however when we're meeting with our you know customers it's not just what they qualify for it's also what they're comfortable with so if somebody is going to have a particular payment and they know that if they upgrade the property that their utility bills are going to be three or four hundred dollars a month less then mentally that can help them to decide where you know what mortgage amount that they want to have what loan amount that they want to have if that makes sense you know so it's not necessarily required by us but it does help the customer to determine their comfort level and that's really important to not just what you qualify for but also what you're comfortable with I'm totally totally aware of that yes yes yes makes complete sense so anything else you don't consider things like trees shading property or not unless it's a hazard if the tree is about to fall under the roof and it gets pointed out by the appraiser then we we may have an issue with it but those things we don't we and again we're not underwriters either but in the general guidelines typically that's not something that we would we would know about unless it gets pointed out by a home you know by the home appraiser yeah we provide the financing options so we don't you know get into the specifics with regards to you know the features the buyer has a discretion on what you know they want to add or and they're not limited to just energy efficient upgrades they can make other upgrades to the house cosmetic or repairs medic yeah yeah and reason I'm asking is because a home that's at the portion of a home that's shaded by a tree on a hot day is that say roof or wall or window is up to 50 degrees cooler because once the Sun's heat strikes a surface it builds up that's radiant energy and it just heats up like a stove there so in our I'm the energy codes guy and we very much encourage in the energy code shading in any way shape or form well we definitely want to include you in our educational seminars yeah we do hope to have regular seminars for home owners and potential home buyers that want to learn about energy efficient upgrades and then again if we combine that with Hawaii energy being there absolutely yeah yeah more information the better for the consumer and from a totally unbiased standpoint I point out again that not only is the home buyer better able to pay the mortgage they have more free cash and Hawaii's energy use just goes down down down down down down down absolutely and for home buyers you know it opens up more options more inventory that they can potentially qualify for for sellers as well it opens up more home buyer options you know by adding you know they can give credits you know for energy efficient upgrades might help them sell their home a little bit yeah I'm thinking of the man of the house is probably gonna be look at the bills bills bills and the lady's gonna be saying oh what a nice counter kid speaking of photovoltaics do you include battery storage has that or you haven't gotten there yet any features associated generally you know with energy efficient upgrades is allowed but it'll depend on the loan program yeah we have varying various loan programs that's the future now it can't be just photovoltaics you have to have storage there because we have so many photovoltaics we're kind of overloaded the the electrical circuits are overloaded with that so we have to in the middle of the day put the energy down into those batteries you use them at night when we need them but on that cheery note it grieves me deeply to have to bid on farewell to these lovely ladies Lisa Heinemann America Madrid thank you so much thank you for attending it's been a wonderful enlightening program and again August 21st in the IBM building it is the space is limited so it is RSVP but we are happy to accommodate as many and if we have if we don't have enough space we're gonna be having more seminars very good hey cold green sink tech Hawaii see you next time