Home Energy Score Mandate: Thurston County Bad Idea

A lot of times it’s a mystery to the buyer about well, how much insulation is in the walls or, you know, are the windows leaking air or not. >> ordinance might require homeowners in Thurston County to pay up to $350 to get an energy assessment before they can sell their home. >> Under a new proposal by the Board of County Commissioners, homeowners might be required to get a home energy score before putting their house on the market. Current proposal says a certified assessor would rate the overall energy efficiency of a home from 1 to 10. It would cost $150 to $350 for an energy assessment.

Those who support this ordinance say this allows the buyer to compare home energy costs of different homes for sale. >> So, I think it makes it more transparent so that buyers know what they’re getting when they shop for different homes. >> But others say the current proposal might affect how people choose their new home. >> As if, you know, you have an older home that’s built 1912, 19, you know, an historic home that might get an energy score one, but you have a brand new home that has a higher energy score, it might sway the buyer. >> Don Baker with the Thurston County Realtors Association says the current proposal would change how every house is brought to the market.

We agree with climate policy, you know, we’re not disagreeing with that part of it, but right now, you know, we are in a housing affordability crisis. And then putting anything on the point of sale could have unintended consequences on the buyer, the seller. Washington State has some of the least affordable housing in all of the United States. You put Washington State, some of our markets up against California, I mean, yeah, it’s it’s nutty, absolutely nutty. And Washington State’s housing doesn’t need to be this this expensive. But you’ve had 40 years of Democrat rule, and you’ve shrunk the supply of where you can build, and then you’ve made everything incredibly expensive.

You’ve put layer after layer after layer of government regulations on it, and then you go, “Where’s our affordable housing?” Well, it’s right there. That’s what a million-dollar starter home looks like. And that’s that’s throughout Washington state. Thurston County is going down this road. Um I am I am not in favor of any of this energy nonsense. If you want to do it voluntarily, that’s fine. But if you look at an older Victorian home, it’s probably not going to be as energy efficient as a 2026 new build. Do Do you know what I mean? Just kind of like think it through. Does my home that I am looking at it Does it have double-insulated windows?

Oh, it doesn’t? All right, that’s not going to be as energy efficient as the new build that does. Is there insulation in the walls? Ah, ask your inspector. He’ll be able to tell you. I mean I mean this stuff isn’t all that hard. And if you eyeball a home and you think, “God, that house doesn’t look like it’s all that airtight,” then that means that house probably isn’t all that airtight. Having these mandatory scores, all it does is add more cost, and it creates a situation where you’ve got more in the process to bog the transaction down. Because you’ve got a home, “Oh my God, I got a three on my energy score.

What am I going to do? I’m just going to run out and really lay some insulation into this bad boy.” You know, it it’s a bunch of brain-dead people going, “This is going to be the greatest thing ever.” And it’s not. It’s just mentally challenged. This stuff is just mentally challenged, and this is how you get a real estate housing market to be wildly overheated with hardly any inventory in it and hardly any buyers. And that’s what you’ve got going on right now. The revolution of sales volume happening right now is way less way less than during the Great Recession. And yet prices are still going up.

Because you’ve constricted supply so badly. So badly. They go, “We need affordable housing.” This isn’t how to do that. This is one more little chip at affordable housing. And by that I mean not affordable housing. Your million-dollar starter home in a lot of markets have not caught up. Wages haven’t caught up with the median housing price. When you got a median housing price of $800,000, 20% down, 160 grand, 700 and 640,000 balance with a mortgage rate of 6%? You got to be making some real money to cover those payments. A lot of the country, a lot of the areas where this is happening, it is the numbers don’t pencil.

The math does not map. Read the story. Under an ordinance being considered by Thurston County Board of County Commissioners, that is down south, it goes um Snohomish, King, Pierce, Thurston, kind of in order of um your western counties. Homeowners could soon be required to obtain an energy assessment before putting their home on the market. And you know what? Anything that is a overlay on what somebody can do with their financial asset, a home, their biggest investment of their lines lives, anybody telling somebody else what to do with that, I am a hard no-go. Just don’t even do it. Don’t even think about it.

You know what I mean? Don’t tread on me. Just don’t. The proposal would require sellers to secure a home energy score. Who cares? You know what I mean? I mean if if that’s your biggest determination of your home, I get it. Nobody wants to spend, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars on, you know, energy. But, you kind of know what you’re getting into, right? And you can always ask the seller, “Hey, what were your utility bills for the last 6 months?” Get a range from summer through fall. You’re going to know roughly what’s going on. And if you can’t work that out, then you probably got a bad furnace or a bad AC, or you got Yeah, you’ve just got an older home that isn’t energy efficient, and you’re going to need to know that going into it.

Don’t be a dumbass is the bottom line, right? Just caveat emptor. The buyer beware. You got to figure it out. You got to be an adult, and you got to work through those things. Under the current plan, a private sector assessor would rate a home’s overall energy efficiency on a scale of 1 to 10. The county said the assessment would cost between 150 and 350 bucks. It’s one more thing a seller’s got to do, and it’s one more thing that a buyer is going to consider. Oh my god, it’s got a low score. Should I buy it? Oh, no. Now, I’ve got this other home. Hey, yeah, we’re in negotiation, and um, yeah, your your home had a low energy score.

It’s built in 1972, and it hasn’t been updated. Yeah, your home has a low energy score. Uh-huh. Yeah, that’s that’s kind of how this goes, right? Supporters argue the score would enable buyers to compare the energy costs of different homes, and gain a better understanding of what they are purchasing. All this does is push people to make in investments in >> [clears throat] >> in in energy efficiency. Oh, let’s get the highest rated dishwasher. You know, I I really question all of this energy efficiency nonsense. It takes me 2 and 1/2 hours to run the cycle on my dishwasher.

Like, what in the world is going on? You know what I mean? It’s one of these new super quiet. You can hardly tell it’s on, but it takes 2 and 1/2 hours to get through its cycle. It’s running heat, it’s running air, it’s running all kinds of crap through there. Does this make any sense? I don’t think so. Yeah, but Sean, it’s more efficient. Yeah, 2 and 1/2 hours? I don’t know. Let me get back to you on that, right? Supporters argue the score would enable buyers. Okay, we did that. I think it makes more transparent so that buyers know what they’re getting when they shop for different homes. A lot of times it’s a mystery to the buyer how much insulation is in the walls.

I’ll tell you what, if it’s cold outside and the heat is on and inside it’s cold, then you don’t have a lot of insulation in the walls, right? Whether the windows are leaking air or not, look at them. Are they insulated? Have they blown their panes? This isn’t that hard to figure out, folks. You got to take some responsibility. And and and and I think people know that, but I think this new green new deal is just it’s just gone too far, right? It’s just a bunch of crap. It’s about oh, we’re so we’re so we’re going to virtue signal that homes in our jurisdiction have to have an energy score. Therefore, everybody can be on a level playing field.

Figure it out. Not that hard. Figure it out, folks. Just to have that independent assessment. Thurston County Realtors Association is urging the board to pause before making a decision, saying the policy could influence how buyers evaluate Yeah, it’s going to. And it’s one more thing in a market that is already outrageously expensive. Let’s just layer on one more bureaucratic nonsense step, and we’ll just see how it goes. How many of those can the market take? Look at California. What is its sales volume doing right now? Not good, right? Way down. Way below during the the Great Recession. A historic home might get an energy score of one.

You have a brand new home that has a higher energy score. Might sway the buyer. All right. It might lessen the value of the home to certain people, said Don Baker of the Thurston County Realtors Association. Will it Will it really do that? I mean I mean you got a historic home that has a lot of charm, that has a lot of features. I’m not into historic homes because, you know, in order to keep that value going, you need to keep them going in the direction of keeping them original. And that’s a lot of work. And in order to do that correctly, it’s very very difficult to stay within historical standards.

So, I’m not a huge historical home kind of guy. I’m more of a hey, if I can blow this down and make some money, then you know, that’s the D8 hitting that house. Are we okay with that? All right. If we’re not cuz it’s historic, then I’m going to say, “Mhm, yeah.” You know what I mean? Just let me do what I want with my house. Baker said the proposal will change how every house is brought to market and raised concerns about added costs during a time of high housing prices. Correct. 100% correct. And you know, there’s already jurisdictions, individual cities, that have mandated this. And they’re all super progressive and they’re all super liberal because they’re they’re concerned so much about virtue signaling.

Oh, my house has a high energy score. Look at me. I’m so great. I’ve got I I you know, they’ve got bumper stickers. My house has a high energy score. I don’t know why this annoys me so much, but it certainly does. Reagree with the climate policy? I don’t. I I don’t. I don’t agree with it at all. It’s nonsense. Nonsense. About recycling. About recycling. All your All your All your recycling goes right into the garbage. No. Very tiny percentage actually gets recycled of your plastic. Vast majority of your plastic gets put right in the dump. Right in the landfill. It’s going to take thousands and thousands and thousands of years, if ever, to decompose.

And it probably won’t. Those batteries in your Tesla? Good luck with that. Yeah. Just going to let them sit in the core of the earth and Yeah. But we’re so virtue signaling. We’re so clean. We’re not disagreeing with that part of it with with the climate policy. I am. I say no. But right now, we’re in a housing affordability crisis and putting anything at the point of sale could have unintended consequences for the buyer and the seller. Yes, it could. Is this a good idea? If you want to make it voluntary for for sellers, if you are really hell-bent on getting a a climate score for your home, hey, I’m all for it.

If you think that’s going to help you, no issues. But don’t make it mandatory. Oh. We can’t list your home. You don’t You don’t have a climate energy score. You know, and and then it’s the inevitable soft slope of, “Well, we’re going to need to have an energy rating on your hot water tank. We’re going to need you to get an efficiency test on your furnace. Um insulation in the attic? You’re a little bit shy. We’re going to need you to help us help you get more insulation.” I mean, at what point in time does that become, you know, the thing? We just want them to really look through the policy and make sure it’s good before they pass it.

Oh, they’ll pass it, I’m sure. They’ll I’m sure they’ll pass it. I mean whole thing is just >> [laughter] >> You know what I mean? The crazy thing to me is how we keep going down this road. We’ve got median housing prices it you know, 7 8 900 million dollars here in Washington state. Those are not uncommon numbers. I’m looking at homes in the twos, threes and fours that are fantastic homes in Oklahoma City. In developments, clean developments. They don’t have any of this nonsense. And it’s because they haven’t layered in all of this crap and they blow and go on development.

And they’ve done a great job of basically starting the city out like this and then they go out a little bit further and then they go out a little bit further and each time they go out further before that they have their freeway system ready. So you’ve got these developments that absolutely make sense and you’ve got land to build new construction and still make money in the mid 200,000 dollars. It’s because they’re run by Republicans and they’re not short-sided and put in crap like this which is just layer after layer after layer after oh you got to do this. Oh you got to do that. Oh you got to do that.

Oh you got you got to do be you got to you got to do this. Right? Don’t need that. Cut it. Cut it. Cut all that out. And that’s why when I talk about you know, when you elect a socialist for a mayor in Seattle that runs on affordability, it’s all of those layers of governmental bureaucracy that has made everything so expensive. So unless you literally scratch the entire housing code just start over. Unless you s- you you clear every single home in King County. All right, boys. We’re going to start over. We’re going to start over with zoning, too. No more No more lot lines, no more planned developments, no more nothing.

Clean slate. We’re getting rid of all the houses. We’re getting rid of all the code. We’re starting over. Unless you do that, which is not practical, you can’t destroy everybody’s home and start over. Bring in the D8. We’re clearing some homes. That’s not going to happen. So, then what are you left with? You’re left with all that crap in the system that’s already there that has been the result of endless policies just like this. Let’s make sellers get an energy score before they can list their home. And you’re like, “Ah, I’m sure that’s going to work out great.” Who wants this crap? I mean, who wants it?

“Ah, it’s going to be more transparent.” You know what’s transparent? Figuring it out and writing a note to yourself. House doesn’t look like it’s insulated all that well. Uh Can I work on that? Yeah, of course you can. You can always insulate an old house. If you want to do that. That’s just the way it goes. But this energy score before you can list it, I mean, that’s bordering on communism, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah, I’m not I’m not down with that. So, you know, some massive differences in how different people view the housing market. And I’m more of a hands-off kind of guy cuz that’s how I grew up.

Just hands-off. No, don’t tell me what to do. No regulations. It’s just nonsense. With Washington state Democrat rule, oh, you better believe we have got layers of regulations. And that’s how you have a building permit that can cost 60 70 grand here, might cost two or three grand in Oklahoma City. Hm. Hm. Right off the bat, before you’ve broken ground. You’ve basically got the cost of a building permit in other jurisdictions is the cost of an entire finished lot in Oklahoma. So, which one’s going to be on a more fine financially sound basis? Yeah, you tell me. Not that hard to figure out. But, you know, let’s debate it anyway.

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