Episode 2: Chris Chopik – Real Estate and the Environment

In celebration of Earth Day we’ll speak with REALTOR® Chris Chopik, a passionate environmental advocate about how climate-risk directly impacts the industry, the role REALTORS® can play protecting the environment, and what REALTORS® need to know about selling greener homes.

Transcript

Erin Davis: Hello, and welcome to REAL TIME, a podcast for REALTORS® and everybody who's interested in the latest real estate news trends and insights, so you. We've got some fascinating people and great information you can put to use in your life. No matter what line of work you call your passion. I'm Erin Davis, very happy to be your REAL TIME host and my life's work has been waking up radio audiences in Canada's biggest market.

With this podcast, we're all awakening to ways we can grow our business, improve the life we've chosen and learn all kinds of ways to protect what we stand on and what we stand for. In this case, our beloved tiny blue dot as Carl Sagan so beautifully put it. Earth Day is April 22nd, but if 2020 has taught us anything and we have learned a lot, it is that we are truly all in this together. Grab a copy, recycle that pod and here we go with episode two of REAL TIME brought to you by CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association. His name is Chris Chopek and he's green.

We usually, when we refer to someone is green, it means they're new or they're envious, but Chris truly is green in the best ways possible. In fact, so green, he makes me a little envious. He works hard to help us all to understand how climate change affects the homes we live in, where we want to be and how we can save and even make money by moving towards sustainable energy.

Chris is a master of design studies and has served as an advisor in many capacities, but today he sharing his wisdom, his passion with us. Oh, and he's also been working as a REALTOR® for a couple of decades. Let's spend some REAL TIME with Chris Chopek. Chris it's such a pleasure to be talking to you today. Thank you for making the time to join REAL TIME.

Chris Chopek: It's a pleasure to be here and thanks very much for having me.

Erin: We love guests who are passionate about in this case being green. Why is green your passion?

Chris: It's interesting for me green is everything. I think of quality of life as being the center point of the purpose of real estate, where we live, why we choose to live there. It's because my life is centered around where I live. For me being green includes going out to my front yard, to the tree lined street on my Boulevard, going out to neighbourhood parks and enjoying my natural time and having lots of places to recreate. Being green for a much to me is about an integration of quality of life and everything that I do.

Erin: Isn't it encouraging in so many ways that people, a lot of people have stopped rolling their eyes when you say green? I mean, where it's becoming integrated into everyone's lives, not the outliers anymore.

Chris: It's funny. I agree with you. I used to ask who believes in climate change and that's a moot point now and very much when I think of green, I think of context. Green for a commercial real estate investor is about saving green because the return on investment is there. The green for an individual in a neighbourhood might be very much about a local community garden.

Erin: Can you discuss the overall housing industry, Chris in relation to being green? Where are we now?

Chris: In Canada, more than 10% of houses have either been built to a relatively high standard or have undergone significant retrofits in order to be relatively green. That is, they're leak-free, they've been sealed up, they've got good insulation in the attics and they've got efficient heating systems. That collage of things makes a green home. In addition, many of our homes are located in towns which are walkable, where there are amenities locally available.

We see the emergence of walk score as a prominent feature in the listings today and because that's a feature that buyers are looking for, so generally we're doing better than we have ever before. It's really more relevant to more of our buyers, more millennials care. As the marketplace becomes more aware of the value of a solar panel and how it works, of course, more people then can seek us out. There's certainly a growing demand market for that.

Erin: Chris, we're seeing more solar panels on roofs, so aren't we?

Chris: We're seeing more solar. The feed-in tariff program in Ontario was a big push on that front. Also, remote properties that have, either less reliable electricity grids or no electricity conductivity are places where solar is becoming very practical because the price is much lower than it ever has been. We're seeing more of it. What that means is that more people get comfortable with making those investments.

Erin: You've stated that historically 7% of the Canadian marketplace has been interested in energy efficiency. You mentioned your tree-lined boulevard and being green, has that been a very slow curve or do you anticipate it, shooting up higher in the very near future? Where do you see that 7% going? I know we're jumping into the future right now, but it lays the foundation for our discussion today about being green and environmentally smart with your home, whether you're living in it or trying to sell it.

Chris: That's 7% of Canadians who have traditionally always spent extra money on renovating for energy efficiency that has shifted, green with the advent of the Tesla Powerwall and electric vehicles everywhere. The electric vehicle of today is not, doing the right thing for the right reasons. The electric vehicle of today is a high-performance vehicle. It is faster than a gasoline-powered car, it's sexier. The same goes with home energy efficiency, more and more people are understanding that if I can spend less on energy, I can spend more on my kids' hockey tuition, or I'm buying a new guitar, or going on vacation. That's a better quality of life by making the right kinds of investments.

I think that we've crossed the chasm in marketing terms. The early adopters are the first to go. the chasm happens afterwards. I think that we're seeing a main streaming of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and all of the things that we consider as green.

Erin: We talk about passive houses too and that's not a passive-aggressive house. That's the house that sits there and says, "Yes, your Christmas lights are okay, I guess." but what is a passive house, Chris? Why do we want to aim towards one?

Chris: Passive house is an emerging standard that is really about utilizing as little mechanical energy as possible in retaining a comfortable indoor air environment. It starts with a really well-insulated building envelope. It then goes to solar orientation. Is the house letting the sun in, in the winter and keeping the sun out during the summer so that there's minimal air conditioning load and maximum heating benefit and then minimizing the size of the mechanical systems so that the energy use is very low.

This is a building standard that is emerging across the world as the next standard. All my clients who are undergoing significant renovations or building new today, I suggest going to a passive or net zero energy standard because it is going to be baseline building code in the relatively near future. Today, if you have a high- performance house, passive house that's to be listed on the market, it's very important that a REALTOR® representing that product can explain the benefits to the buyer, create good marketing materials around that. That's some of what we're talking about today.

Erin: Coming up, how as a REALTOR® you can green your business and separate yourself from everyone else, even though these days more than ever, we're all looking for connection?

REALTOR.ca is the most popular and trusted real estate website in Canada, connecting local REALTORS® with Canadians to help with the biggest purchase of their life. Visit REALTOR.ca to meet a REALTOR® near you or just to connect as we're doing right now with our REAL TIME guest, Chris Chopek.

Let's talk about how REALTORS® can green their real estate business. How do you go about educating people? I guess you could put in some ways, because there are people like me who are green for dummies, if you will, on what makes a house even more saleable?

Chris: It's a challenging business. We are in a very competitive business. It's a "me too" value proposition. It's very hard to distinguish one REALTOR®'s brand from another. We're all going to sell your house for more money in less time, with less inconvenience to you. When you have a home that has green features, it's very important to be able to speak to those features in order to captivate the interests of the buyer market that is going to care about those things.

I had a listing in Toronto, about a year ago, we had solar hot water and solar photovoltaics on the listing and we did a great job of creating a green feature sheet in the listing. As a result, two of the many parties that were interested in the solar panels decided to go in above and beyond, pay more, offer more for that house and my client was certainly rewarded for that. There's a lot of different contexts. It's important to be investing in the right green for the product.

Erin: The right green. I think you've really hit on something here, because lime green, obviousl