Portal to Home Buying Heaven & Meeting Heaven

HUD has a great portal with links to all the info on the programs the Federal Housing Administration has for homebuyers. Her eyou can find the Making Home Affordable program description, as well as the energy efficient mortgages (green mortgages) and links to agencies that help you avoid forclosure that are approved by HUD and the FHA. You can even ask a question via e-mail if you don't see what you need.

http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD/federal_housing_administration

On another note, rather than listing all the green events in So Cal, I urge you to go to http://www.meetup.com/. In Orange County, the group is called "Going Green in Orange County", but you can search within meetup for any topic you are interested in, and you will be directed to all the meetings taking place in your area for that topic. I just went to meetup, and searched "Green Home" and found 186 meetups within 25 miles of Dana Point! Never a dull moment!!!

Going Green in Orange County is organized by Evan Little, who is also a Certified EcoBroker® working with Surterre Properties. Speaking of Evan and the great work he is doing in OC to promote green living, he sent me an e-mail about this event I think is definately worth mentioning (one of 186!!):

A Breath of Fresh Air: Inside and Out

Enjoy an engaging evening in one of Orange County's newest, green luxury homes. Sample consciously prepared hors d'oeuvres & refreshments from some of the county's top chefs while you tour the home. Mingle with leading air quality and environmental toxicity experts while we collectively raise funds and awareness for the American Lung Association in California. Celebrity Guests, Organic Wines & Spirits, Consciously Prepared Hors d'Oeuvres, Guided "Green" Home Tours, Mingle with Air Quality Experts, Check out a New Tesla Roadster Electric Car, Learn steps to clean up your air...

Live Presentations by:
• Green Nest • American Lung Association CA • Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D. you have to rsvp, here's the link:

https://www.kintera.org/faf/reg_new/register.asp?ievent=306322&lis=1&kntae306322=78CCF312CEA14252B6A288593B3538EE&teamAction=none

Green Building and Real Estate is Booming in So Cal!

I went to the HUD Symposium on Green Building last week at Chapman University, and came back with my brain and bag loaded with great information. We got to see an abbreviated version of "An Inconvenient Truth" presented by the Climate Project. http://www.climateproject.org/ and I was so encouraged to see the government was presenting this! I think the ostrich's head is finally out of the sand! Anyway, I made some great connections with mortgage lenders with tons of experience with EEMs (Energy Efficient Mortgages -see my post from: April 27, 2009) and Energy Auditors, Certified Build it Green Companies, and so much more.

Also found out about some great programs where foreclosures are purchased by non-profits, remodeled green, then offered at a great discount to low income families. The families are helped with their down payment and also with part of the purchase price through HUD grants and these programs. More info on this can be found at: www.enterprisecommunity.org/about/media/news_releases/.../RNLA_pr_2009.pdf

The organizers of the symposium promised to post all the power point presentations on the web soon, so I will post the link when I get it for everyone. In the meantime, I have loads of information on my website: http://www.socalgreenrealty.com/ or http://www.ocgreenrealty.com/

TELE-BLOG AND WRITTEN BLOG

You may not be aware that I post a green tele-blog on my voice mail each week with green tips. Check it out at: 949-306-3854. I've decided to start doing a different green tip each week here on this written blog also.

Green tip of the week:

The HUD Symposium's presentation of the Climate Project reminded me that:

If you have not seen "An Inconvenient Truth"by Al Gore (who by the way won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for this work!) see it now! More information and resources can be found on http://www.theclimateproject.org/, http://www.wecansolveit.org/, http://www.realclimate.org/

Discover why the issue of Global Warming is so very important and be encouraged, as we are taking a lot of steps as a country and world to deal with it. I believe human ingenuity can and will come up with solutions to every problem.