NAHB and Fannie Mae Form Green Building Partnership

On June 10, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Fannie Mae, the nation’s largest source of financing for home mortgages, announced a partnership to develop and test a menu of mortgage products based on “green building” criteria. Fannie Mae is providing $100 million for investment in environmental product initiatives that test new housing finance products and support local green builder efforts. Six cities have been identified where these initiatives will be developed and tested: Atlanta, Columbus, Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

While the details of how this program will work have not been determined, it could have very significant impact on the fledgling residential green building industry. By virtue of the power of financing, Fannie Mae (with NAHB’s help) could end up “establishing the rules” for green building. This is troubling to some active players in the green building industry, including Bion Howard, who noted in a recent posting to the GreenBuilding e-mail discussion group that NAHB has long opposed