FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

Posting #2 Energy Efficiency = Lower Energy Bills Forever

An Amaris built custom home is built significantly above code requirements and can save you 50% or more in energy costs as compared to another new home built to a HERS score of 100 (e.g. the minimum requirement for a house built to today’s code). If you are buying a used home that was built ten, twenty, thirty, forty or fifty years ago more the energy savings is greater. In general, the older the home the greater your energy costs will be.

Lower energy bills reduce your monthly budget expenditures forever or the difference can be applied to the purchase price of the home to increase your purchasing power yielding the exact same monthly payments. See example below:

Purchase Price

Description Used New

Mortgage                                $ 250,000.00           $250,000.00

Utilities Savings Added       $            0.00 $   28,000.00 (Posting #2)

Total                                        $ 250,000.00           $ 278,000.00

Cash Flow

Description Used New

Payment @ 5% interest         $     1,342.05           $     1,492.36

Utilities                                   $        291.67 $        141.67 (Posting #2)

Total                                       $     1,633.72 Mo     $     1,634.03 Mo

Energy savings is not the panacea answer when considering building new versus buying used, rather it is just the obvious starting point. However, most buyers fail to consider energy costs when comparing homes and yet there can be big differences from one home to another in terms of energy costs, especially a much older home versus one built by Amaris Custom Homes today.

In addition, energy costs will continue to rise year after year roughly based in the inflation rate (at a minimum). After just ten years at a yearly inflation rate of 4% a $291.67 energy bill turns in $415.13 per month, a $141.67 energy bill turns into $201.64. This means the savings increases as energy cost increase. As we see in the example above, applying the initial monthly payment difference in energy costs to the purchase price could increase your purchase power by many thousands of dollars.