Cash for caulkers: Appealing to home shoppers?

WASHINGTON – Feb. 8, 2010 – Congress is about to approve a program to put contractors back to work doing energy retrofits.

If the program nicknamed “Cash for Caulkers” passes, homeowners will be eligible for a tax credit worth up to $12,000 or half the cost of the retrofits, whichever is lower.

A homeowner who spends $24,000 to cut his energy use in half will save an average of $100 per month, estimates Lane Burt, manager of building energy policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. With a $12,000 tax rebate from the government, the payback will take 10 years.

Some real estate practitioners point out that energy retrofits might be a hard sell because they don’t raise a home’s sale value. “It sounds good on paper, but it’s just not how the American consumer makes choices,” says Jeff Geoghan, a Coldwell Banker Realtor® in Lancaster, Pa. “If you’re buying a house, and you see a furnace has a 95 percent efficiency rating, are you really going to make your decision based on that?”

Source: CNNMoney.com