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On Wednesday, September 30th, Lennar joined leaders from the City of Austin and Austin Energy, as well as Texas policymakers, to open the city’s first solar-standard community made possible by recent changes in utility regulations – demonstrating that environmental sustainability and new-home affordability can go hand-in-hand.
Texas Rep. Eddie Rodriguez and Austin Energy Vice President of Customer Energy Solutions Deborah Kimberly joined local and national Lennar and SunStreet executives to cut a green ribbon at a ceremony welcoming guests to the solar-powered model homes at Colorado Crossing southeast of downtown Austin.
“This community marks a significant milestone for Austin with homes that meet two vital needs – affordability and sustainability,” said David Kaiserman, CEO of SunStreet Energy Group, the Lennar subsidiary that works with local installers, and monitors and maintains the rooftop solar systems on every new home in the community. “These homes are an example of the great things that can happen when good policy encourages creative businesses to use advanced technology in ways that have real and lasting benefits both for individual buyers and society as a whole.”
Colorado Crossing, where single-family home prices start below $200,000, is Austin’s first new-home community to include SunStreet’s state-of-the-art solar power systems as a standard feature that, under the SunStreet Solar Lease, adds nothing to the price of the home. Homeowners pay a low, flat monthly fee for a system that generates more than half of their anticipated electricity needs. The innovative SunStreet program is made possible by recent changes in Austin Energy’s regulations that aim to increase the share of renewable energy procured by the city-owned utility to 55% by 2025, including at least 100 MW of customer-sited local solar.
“It should never cost more to be green,” said Rep. Rodriguez, who pushed for statutory changes that make rooftop solar a more affordable option to many homeowners. “By having SunStreet incorporate solar right into the home from the outset, Lennar is making it easy to live a more sustainable lifestyle. It’s a no-brainer.”
With more than 100 communities in development nationwide, Lennar’s unique SunStreet solar offering makes clean, safe renewable energy an integral feature of every new home. The SunStreet offering uniquely positions Lennar to dramatically expand the adoption of solar. The first phase of new solar homes at Colorado Crossing will include 120 homes.
Coinciding with an article highlighting how the newest wave of master-planned communities are being built for real-world connectivity, BUILDER shines a bright orange spotlight on FivePoint Communities’ Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine, California.
The logo of FivePoint Communities’ Great Park Neighborhoods is a whimsical orange bicycle, but that choice wasn’t made on a whim. Bordering the 1,300-acre Orange County Great Park, on the grounds of a decommissioned Marine Corps air station, the 2,800-acre mixed-use development is laced with bikeways that speed two-wheeled transport within the community, through the park, and – via transit links – to the world beyond.
Approved for 9,500 housing units, Great Parks Neighborhoods eventually will include up to 4.7 million square feet of office and commercial space. That’s a lot of potential bike commuters. But the logo’s friendly connotations extend beyond physical mobility.
“We focus on mixing things,” says FivePoint president and CEO Emile Haddad. “Each community will have a beating heart” – with a combination of national and local retailers – “where it feels like a little downtown.”
Housing will include single-family residences, move-down homes for empty nesters, and rental apartments for low-income seniors. FivePoint will design all of them, partly for consistency but also to attract buyers from a wide range of backgrounds.
When the icicles start forming, and the holiday decorations are going up, that might be a little late to start those necessary fall maintenance projects around your home. This article from U.S. News offers some helpful tips on things to do now to care for your roof, your yard and your pipes – before the cold weather gets in your way.
With fall in the air, your thoughts may turn to what needs to be done to your home before winter sets in. Many tasks are done much more easily when the weather is still nice. Plus, taking care of routine maintenance tasks now can save you aggravation and money down the road.
“If you don’t do these things and you end up having to do repairs, it can cost so much more later,” says Leah Ingram, cost advisor for HomeAdvisor.com and a frugal living expert who publishes the site SuddenlyFrugal.com.
Many fall maintenance routines are designed to prevent water damage and guard homeowners from safety hazards, especially from fires. “Water is a homeowner’s worst enemy,” Ingram says. “People don’t think about the kind of damage it can do.”
The use of fireplaces, candles and space heaters, all more common in winter, can be a fire hazard if you don’t keep up with routine safety measures.
While homeowners can do some routine tasks themselves, others such as inspecting chimneys and repairing roofs, are best left to professionals. As cold weather approaches, it may get harder to get appointments, and you may also be less inclined to go outside and work, making it crucial to plan ahead and knock out projects in fall.
Even if you live in an area where snow and ice aren’t likely, fall is still a good time to catch up with routine maintenance. Water and falling branches can cause equally expensive damage in the tropics as it does in the snowbelt.
Here are some fall home maintenance tasks to tackle now:
Clean gutters and downspouts. Leaves and debris gather in gutters, which can cause ice dams and other water damage when snow falls and then melts, or during rainstorms. This is an easy task to do yourself if you can climb a ladder safely.
Remove leaves. Not only do you want the leaves out of your gutters, you want them off your roof and off your lawn. Despite what some may believe, letting leaves decay on your lawn does not provide fertilizer. “It’s actually helping fungus and mold build up, which can kill your lawn,” Ingram says.
Check smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. It’s smart to test the devices and replace the batteries every six months, making this a chore for fall and spring. Also, make sure you have enough fire extinguishers and that they are in the right place.
Change filters in heating and air conditioning units. Most forced-air systems work better when the filters are clean. While some filters are advertised to last several months, people with pets or old houses with a lot of dust should change filters monthly.
Caulk around the windows. Cold air can easily enter your home around windows. Caulking wears out after a few years. This is a chore many homeowners can do themselves for less than $20.
Aerate your lawn. By using a machine to poke holes in your lawn, you help air and water get to the roots. This is best done when the lawn is wet. The process helps it grow back next season. “When it snows and the snow start to melt, the aerated areas help the water get to the root system of your lawn,” Ingram says.
The American commute is shifting in increasingly novel ways, especially at the metropolitan level. Going back to 2000, many workers are opting out of traditional modes of transport like cars and switching to other modes.
The continued surge in remote working offers perhaps the most widespread evidence of these changing commute patterns, helping lower costs and take cars off the road. From 2000 to 2014, nearly 2.4 million more people – or 13% of all new commuters – are working at home to bring their national total to 6.5 million. Moreover, the share of workers at home has risen from 3.2% to 4.5%, surpassing the rate of growth in all other commuting categories and building off a series of emerging work patterns in the public and private sector.
This pattern is nearly universal across the country. With the exception of Omaha, all metro areas experienced a gain since 2000 in the share of people working from home, topped by Raleigh, Boise, and Austin, which each realized a jump of 3 percentage points or more. There’s a bit of a regional pattern to the growth, too, with the largest gainers primarily in the South or West.
In addition to working at home, many commuters are also seeking alternate transportation options in the form of transit and biking, in particular.
The old saying goes that money can’t buy happiness. That may be true, but it also may be true that happiness is not determined by how much money you earn, but rather, how you spend it. This article from BrightNest outlines some of the ways spending a little money on the right things can make for a very happy home.
Ever heard the phrase “happiness is an inside job”? It’s true. We can all stand to bring a little more joy into our lives, and it turns out our hard-earned cash can help us get there. Yes, that’s right: You can buy happiness. According to a new book called Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, by Harvard professor Michael Norton, there are ways spending can increase your bliss with cash.
According to an article in Time magazine about the book, it isn’t the act of shopping that brings joy. Rather, it’s the strategic way you spend, and the mindful reflection on that spending that will bring happiness.
To boost your bliss try one or more of these ideas:
Buy Experiences.
According to the article, 57% of Americans reported that purchasing an experience made them happier than buying something material. It’s not necessarily because the experience is so fun. Rather, this is because you can reflect on and think about your “money well spent” for long after the experience is over.
This is because of a phenomenon called adaptation. No matter how excited you are about your new thing you recently bought, you’re going to get bored of it over time and it will lose its glitz.
So what can you do at home? Well, anything. Here are a few ideas:
Throw a Puzzle Party. Puzzles are making a comeback, particularly interesting puzzles that can parlay into framed art. Buy a puzzle you find interesting and invite a few family members or friends to join you. For the 21 and up crowd, bring a few brews or a bottle of wine to the table. Play some music. Have fun! Once it’s complete, consider framing it.
Note: If you want to keep the fun going, don’t feel pressured to finish the entire thing in one sitting. Twice the parties, twice the fun!
Host a Mashed Potato Social. Throwing a dinner party doesn’t have to break the bank! We love the idea of a mashed potato social, because it’s quirky enough to be memorable, and potatoes currently sell for about $2 per pound. Throw some cream, butter, milk and salt into your grocery cart and whip up a batch of perfect mashed potatoes. For the party, lay out a few classic toppings like chives, butter, bacon and cheese buffet style. For a whimsical touch, serve your potatoes in sundae glasses. Friends and family will have fun building their own potato sundae, and you’ll have potato-filled memories to make you smile.
Make It A Treat.
When it comes to romance, we’ve all heard “distance makes the heart grow fonder.” Well, the same concept is true for purchases. According to the article, knowing you can’t have access to something all the time may help you appreciate it more when you do. (Think holiday treats.) How can you trick yourself into savoring a treat? Make it a special occasion! Here’s an idea:
Sunday Night: Ice Cream Night. If ice cream makes you happy, deny yourself the sweet treat six days a week. Then, fight the Sunday scaries by allowing yourself to indulge in the deliciousness of a cup or cone at home on Sunday evening. You’ll think about the ritual all week long and may even enjoy Sunday nights a little bit more!
Note: If ice cream isn’t your thing, find something that is! Maybe it’s a Sunday night hot wings tradition, or brownie night. Whatever the treat is, make sure it’s something you truly enjoy.
Invest In Others.
There’s a reason gift-giving is considered a love language. According to the article, people who spend money on others are measurably happier than those who spent money on themselves – even though there were no differences between the groups at the beginning of the day! So make someone else smile and you’ll feel the effects, too.
Here are a few ideas:
Do Their Chores. We love this idea, because it’s free to you! If everyone in your household has different chores, surprise a loved one, roommate or friend by taking care of their task. Don’t let them know it’s happening! Just do the dishes, take out the trash or walk the dog and then casually mention it when they begrudgingly move to do their chore. They’ll be pleased, you’ll feel happy and everyone wins.
Bring Home a Treat. At the end of a long day, chocolate is always a good idea. Next time you head home from work, grab a sweet treat to surprise a loved one or roommate. It doesn’t have to be expensive.mThen, as they eat their treat, sit with them and talk about their day. (Or if it has been awhile, their week.) They’ll feel appreciated and you’ll get all of the feels, all for less than the price of a cup of coffee.
Next week in Weehawken, New Jersey, contractors will begin installation of a planted roof atop 1200 Avenue at Port Imperial. The 103-unit, seven-story building is part of the $2 billion master-planned Port Imperial South Community, located along the Hudson River. Lennar, owners of the previously-opened 1000 Avenue at Port Imperial and 1200 Avenue at Port Imperial, are installing their second green roof as construction nears completion at the second of four condominium buildings planned at The Avenue Collection.
The newest community offers skyline views for 75 percent of the building. In addition to a host of social and health amenities, a third-floor outdoor plaza will feature an open lawn, planting areas, seating, fire pit, sundeck and pool. On Monday, September 28, contractors will begin installing a 21,600 square foot LiveRoof brand system, which will feature a patterned mix of red and gold low-growing sedums. Ornamental grasses will also be used to block view of rooftop mechanical equipment from adjacent windows and seating areas.
Green roofs provide nature, function and beauty. A patented, subterranean modular system unites the soil and plants creating a naturally beautiful meadow-like aesthetic. The roofs provide aesthetic, environmental and social benefits. Financial benefits can also be achieved from a vegetative roof including: extension of roof life, energy conservation, enhanced public relations, and conservation of municipal septic systems. The rooftop garden will provide important stormwater management as required by local legislation.
“Although the green roof is required, we believe it is an important feature to our communities as it supports environmental stewardship and provides significant aesthetic value,” says Craig Klingensmith, division president for Lennar Northeast. “Lennar fully supports greening efforts and the positive effect the planted roof will have on the local community.”
Since today is National Coffee Day, it’s a perfect time to share a very important coffee tip: don’t send your used coffee grounds down your kitchen sink! According to this article from Mother Nature Network, while some people believe that dumping coffee grounds down the drain won’t cause any problems, most plumbers disagree – saying that those coffee grounds (along with grease) cause the most blockages. Here’s a list of other things you should never put down the drains in your kitchen sink, bathroom sinks or toilets.
Our household drains are cunning things; agents of deception, really. They act as magic portals to rinse our messes away, and once we’ve dispatched something down the sink or toilet, we rarely think of it again. Bad us! Because in reality there are many things we pour down the drain that can cause mayhem in household pipes, septic systems or municipal sewer plants – and in turn can be especially vexing for water ecosystems and their inhabitants. Water treatment facilities can remove many contaminants, but a lot of deleterious chemicals and substances still end up in our rivers, lakes and oceans.
So for the sake of healthy plumbing and healthier water habitats, here are some of the more common contenders for things that you shouldn’t send down your pipes.
Eggshells: Even with a garbage disposal, eggshells create granular waste that loves to hook up with other waste to form clogs.
Grease, fats and oils: Any of these slimy threesome can mix with other nasty things and clog household pipes to form “fatbergs” that block sewers. So gross. Grease, fat and oil buildups caused about 47% of the up to 36,000 sewer overflows that happen annually in the United States. Grease includes cooked and/or melted fat from meat, bacon, sausage, poultry, skin from boiled poultry, and even gravy. Fats are meat trimmings, uncooked poultry skin, cheese, ice cream, butter, milk and other dairy, nut butters, shortening and lard. Oils include cooking oil, olive oil, salad dressings, condiments and mayonnaise.
Produce stickers: Believe it or not, the tiny plastic-containing identification stickers on fruits and vegetables are regularly washed down the drain and create problems. They can get stuck in your drain and pipes as well as stuck on wastewater treatment plant pumps and hoses, or get caught in screens and filters. And if they get past all that, they end up in the water.
Paper towels: Although they may be biodegradable, the absorbency inherent in paper towels makes them perfect for clogging up pipes. Instead of flushing them, compost them or switch to cloth kitchen towels.
Can closing an inactive or rarely used credit card account improve your credit score? No, but being more careful with your open accounts will, and only if you’re making your payments on time and using a small amount of your available credit, according to this article from U.S. News.
If you have a hodgepodge of credit cards tucked inside your wallet, including several you don’t use, you might want to close a few. But before breaking the news to your issuer, make sure that canceling is really your best option.
Closing cards can hurt your credit, but how much damage it does depends on several factors, including credit limits, account ages and the statuses of your other accounts. If you’re selective about the cards you cancel, you can minimize the impact to your credit while getting the most value out of your plastic.
Here’s your guide to which credit cards you should consider closing, and which are best left open.
For example, should you keep or close a card with an annual fee that you never use? The travel rewards you earned on this card once got you a first-class, round-trip international flight, but you haven’t actually purchased anything with it for years. You kick yourself every year you pay the $100 annual fee.
Action: Cancel or convert. If you don’t use your annual fee card, it’s generally not worth shelling out over $100 a year for it. But keep in mind that closing the account may affect your FICO credit scores in the following ways:
Amounts owed – 30 percent of your score. Your total amounts owed is determined in part by how many accounts you have with balances, how much you owe on outstanding loans and your credit utilization ratio, or the percentage of available revolving credit you’re using. The lower your amounts owed, the better. Say you have three cards, each with a $10,000 limit, and a total of $5,000 of debt over two of them. Your credit utilization ratio would be around 17 percent with all accounts open, but if you close the card without a balance, that could go up to 25 percent, hurting your credit. A good rule of thumb is to stay below 20 percent.
Length of credit history – 15 percent of your score. This is calculated by the age of your oldest and newest accounts, and the average age of all your accounts. If you close your oldest account, or if you often open new accounts, your scores could take a hit.
Types of credit in use – 10 percent of your score. Closing accounts could limit the different types of credit you have in use (installment loans, credit cards, etc.) and decrease the number of accounts you have open, ultimately contributing to a small drop in your credit scores.
Cancel your annual fee card, and the biggest impact it will likely have on your credit is driving up the amount of available credit you’re using. If you’re carrying high balances on your other cards, consider paying them off to minimize the hit to your credit upon cancellation.
Closing your card may not be the only option, though. Before making the move, call your issuer and ask if you can convert to a no-fee credit card, or a card that suits your spending needs.
Switching to a card with less strict underwriting standards generally won’t trigger a hard inquiry on your credit, but it could trigger a soft inquiry. A hard pull could make your scores dip about five points temporarily, according to myFICO.com, but a soft one won’t affect your scores. With the conversion, you’ll be able to keep your account number and history in most cases, sparing your length of credit history.
No matter how neat and clean you may try to keep your home, there’s always a chance you could leave something on your kitchen countertop…and never find it again. Most of the time, whatever you left there and can’t find is actually still there, right where you left it, but you can’t actually see it because it’s hanging out with 37 other things on the same countertop. This article from BrightNest offers a few long-term solutions to help you de-clutter your countertops for good, and create more permanent space.
De-cluttering your countertops temporarily is a pretty easy task. Clear the errant items off, wipe down the surface. Done.
But how do things look a week later? Cluttered again?
If you’re stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of cluttered kitchen countertops, you need to try more long-term solutions.
Chances are, you have items in your kitchen you rarely use. If a toaster, blender or superfluous microwave is taking up space on your counter, consider selling or donating it to clear out space for what you do use.
A good purging rule: If you haven’t used an item in the last three months, you probably don’t need it.
Haven’t used your microwave all summer, but can’t bear to part with it? Consider storing big, space-hogging appliances outside of the kitchen. That way, you can grab them from the bottom of your storage closet in a pinch.
Take at a look at your kitchen walls. If there is nary a hook or hanging shelf in sight, you’re underusing them! For example, a knife block can be a huge space hog, so try hanging a magnetic strip instead.
Carts are great ways to store extra kitchen gadgets you rarely use, like a drink mixers, blenders or coffee makers. Carts are versatile and make everything stored within easily visible. Plus, you can wheel it back and forth depending on when and where you need it.
If you have an island, add extra storage. Fasten hooks on all sides of the island to hang things like towels and pans, and use the space underneath to store a stool.
You can also consolidate your utensils. No kitchen needs five spatulas. Go through your drawers and purge copycat utensils.
And move your cookbooks out of the kitchen. Not only are cookbooks huge space hogs, but they are also at risk for damage from grease or water in the kitchen. Designate a stack or shelf outside of the kitchen for your cookbooks, and enjoy the extra space.
