Existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, fell 5.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.37 million units in June from 5.66 million in May, but are 9.8% higher than the 4.89 million-unit pace in June 2009.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the market shows uncharacteristic yet understandable swings as buyers responded to the tax credits. “June home sales still reflect a tax credit impact with some sales not closed due to delays, which will show up in the next two months,” he said.

“Broadly speaking, sales closed after the home buyer tax credit will be significantly lower compared to the credit-induced spring surge. Only when jobs are created at a sufficient pace will home sales return to sustainable healthy levels.”

According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage fell to a record low 4.74% in June from 4.89% in May; the rate was 5.42% in June 2009.

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $183,700 in June, which is 1.0% higher than a year ago. Distressed homes were at 32% of sales last month, compared with 31% in May; it was also 31% in June 2009.

NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox & Associates in Tucson, Ariz., said softer home sales expected this summer don’t tell the whole story. “Despite these market swings, total annual home sales are rising above 2009 and we’re looking for overall gains again this year as well as in 2011,” she said. “Conditions have become more balanced in much of the country, which is good for both buyers and sellers. However, consumers find it even more challenging to navigate the transaction process, especially for distressed properties, which only underscores the value Realtors bring to buyers and sellers in this market.”

A parallel NAR practitioner survey shows first-time buyers purchased 43% of homes in June, down from 46% in May. Investors accounted for 13% of sales in June, little changed from 14% in May; the remaining purchases were by repeat buyers. All-cash sales were at 24% in June compared with 25% in May.

Total housing inventory at the end of June rose 2.5% to 3.99 million existing homes available for sale, which represents an 8.9-month supply at the current sales pace, up from an 8.3-month supply in May.

“The supply of homes on the market is higher than we’d like to see. But home prices are still holding their ground because prices had already overcorrected in many local markets,” Yun said. Raw unsold inventory remains 12.7% below the record of 4.58 million in July 2008.

Single-family home sales fell 5.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.70 million in June from a level of 4.98 million in May, but are 8.5% above the 4.33 million pace in June 2009. The median existing single-family home price was $184,200 in June, up 1.3% from a year ago.

Single-family median existing-home prices were higher in 10 out of 19 metropolitan statistical areas reported in June in comparison with June 2009. In addition, existing single-family home sales rose in 12 of the 19 areas from a year ago while two were unchanged.

Existing condominium and co-op sales slipped 1.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 670,000 in June from 680,000 in May, but are 20.5% higher than the 556,000-unit pace in June 2009. The median existing condo price was $180,100 in June, which is 1.4% below a year ago.

Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast rose 7.9% to an annual level of 960,000 in June and are 17.1% above June 2009. The median price in the Northeast was $244,300, down 1.2% from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the Midwest dropped 7.5% in June to a pace of 1.23 million but are 11.8% higher than a year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $155,900, down 0.1% from June 2009.

In the South, existing-home sales fell 6.5% to an annual level of 2.01 million in June but are 11.0% above June 2009. The median price in the South was $163,600, unchanged from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the West dropped 9.3% to an annual pace of 1.17 million in June but are 0.9% higher than a year ago. The median price in the West was $221,800, up 1.5% from June 2009.

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“As our most recent member surveys have indicated, builders remain very cautious in light of the sluggish pace of the economic recovery and the hesitancy they are seeing among potential home buyers,” noted Bob Jones, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “However, today’s report is actually somewhat encouraging, because it indicates that single-family production is stabilizing following an expected lull that occurred with the end of the home buyer tax credit program.”

“The government’s figures suggest that single-family housing production may be finding a bottom following the tax credits,” agreed NAHB Vice President and Senior Economist Bernard Markstein. “Over the next several months, we expect to see some improvement in both housing starts and sales activity as buyers come forward to take advantage of the very attractive home prices, historically low mortgage rates and excellent selection that characterize today’s new-home marketplace. However, builders continue to confront significant challenges in obtaining financing for viable new projects, and this problem remains a formidable obstacle to economic growth.”

Nearly all of the 5% decline in housing production was on the multifamily side this June, which fell 21.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 95,000 units. Meanwhile, single-family starts hardly budged, with a 0.7% decline to 454,000 units. All four regions posted declines in overall housing production, with an 11.3% reduction in the Northeast, a 6.9% decline in the Midwest, a 2.4% decline in the South and a 5.9% decline in the West.

Meanwhile, nationwide permit issuance, an indicator of future building activity, rose 2.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 586,000 units in June. While single-family permits fell 3.4% to 421,000 units for the month, that decline was due entirely to a drop-off in the South, with every other region holding steady or better on the single-family side. Multifamily permits rose 19.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 165,000 units in June. Combined single- and multifamily permit issuance was up 32.3% in the Northeast, down 10.8% in the Midwest, down 3.1% in the South and up 9.7% in the West in June.

For more information, visit www.nahb.org.

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Many U.S. buyers are looking outside the States to countries where they get even more for their money, and as a result, the second home market has witnessed the participation of new destinations around the world. These hotspots are getting the attention of international buyers who like the prices they find as much as the natural and cultural attractions. Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Belize, southern Mexico, Croatia and Turkey are all enjoying growth in the vacation home market, according to Tom Kelly, nationally-syndicated columnist and author of How a Second Home Can Be Your Best Investment: New, Tax-free Methods for Using a Vacation Home for Recreation, Retirement and Investment.

“A number of Second and Third World venues capture our fancy, including Panama,” wrote William P. Barrett in a recent Forbes article. “Panama has the added advantage of being a relatively short plane ride from the U.S.” Another recent article, this one written by associate editor of Kiplinger’s personal finance section, Laura Cohn, also extols Panama’s financial benefits. Cohn says, “With all of its benefits and active expatriate community, Panama is among the most affordable and appealing options.”

Ben Loomis, President of Amble Resorts, is developing a luxury residence community on an island property in Panama, The Resort at Isla Palenque. “Americans are looking for a retreat from their busy lives, and Panama offers not only a laid back tropical lifestyle, but affordable real estate as well,” says Loomis. “In addition to Panama’s real estate prices, the country’s low cost of living, tropical climate and lush natural beauty combine to make it an increasingly popular choice for vacation home buyers.”

In a March 2010 International Living article, InternationalLiving.com conference director Elaine Finnegan said, “Panama has always been a top choice for people from the U.S., Canada and Europe who want to significantly lower their cost of living without giving up the good life.”

For more information, visit www.Amble.com.

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Harder to qualify for a mortgage
“The new law dictates certain guidelines that lenders must follow when making loans,” Nicholas said. “Some of these guidelines are simply a copy of the current situation. However, now that the guidelines are built into law, lenders will find it even more difficult to loosen their guidelines once the economy and housing market improves.” For example, consider a business owner with a very high 750 credit score, plenty of equity in their home, no history of late payments, and plenty of cash in the bank. If this responsible homeowner experienced a loss in their business last year, they may be prevented from qualifying for a home mortgage under the new law because of the temporary decline in income from their business. The new law requires lenders to document a borrower’s income, but it does not specifically state the terms under which loans can be made. “Regulators may address this ambiguity when writing the regulations implementing the law,” Nicholas said. “However, if they don’t, many lenders will be tempted to tighten their guidelines even further in order to err on the side of caution and stay in compliance with the new law.”

Higher mortgage rates
“There are two sections of the law that will cause mortgage rates to increase in the future,” Nicholas said. “The new law requires lenders to keep a 5% stake in the mortgages they originate unless the loans meet a certain criteria. This means that lenders won’t be able to offload some of the higher risk associated with these loans, and interest rates on these types of loans will go up.” For example, homeowners who have had financial or credit challenges due to divorce or bankruptcy, business owners with fluctuating income, and other homeowners and buyers who fall “outside the box” may need to pay higher rates on their home loans in the future. “Also, the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remains uncertain,” Nicholas said. “The market doesn’t like uncertainty, and mortgage rates could go a lot higher in the future depending on when and how the issue of Fannie and Freddie is resolved.”

“To be clear, there are a few positive elements to the bill,” Nicholas said. “These include consumer protections involving pre-payment penalties and loans originated in states that have laws that prohibit lenders from pursuing judgments against homeowners who owe more than the value of their homes. However, the main takeaway for homeowners and buyers is that mortgage rates are currently very low, and lending guidelines are not as bad as they could be once the new law goes into effect. This means that if you can qualify for a mortgage now, you should do so, and not gamble your homeownership goals on the future impact of the new law.”

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Among the key findings of the survey: Of the 60% of individuals moving into rentals, 24% were previous homeowners who are renting temporarily while they look for a new home to purchase. Underscoring this finding is the fact that for many of these families, foreclosure was not the reason for moving—in fact, the number of consumers who moved due to foreclosure dropped by 70%.

Furthermore, many of these families stayed in the area (one in three made a short distance move of 100 miles or less), opting to remain in a location where they already know their schools, shopping districts and prime neighborhoods.

“While the housing market continues to flux from month to month, we’re seeing strong, continued interest as consumers looking to move start their research with us,” said Relocation.com Chairman and Founder Sharon Asher. “These findings suggest that more Americans may be poised to re-enter the housing market this year.”

The Relocation.com survey was conducted in early June 2010 and is a continuation of consumer surveys conducted since March 2009 to gauge moving and relocation attitudes and behaviors.

For more information, visit www.relocation.com.

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She could have certainly afforded a rental that had at least a bedroom and separate living space in a hipper part of town. But she didn’t because she’s realized something that it takes many people decades, if not a lifetime, to figure out: Money and stuff don’t equal happiness.

Growing up in Silver Bay, Minn., with a dad who worked as a financial associate for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, Zinter was schooled early on about the value of a dollar. And when she graduated from college in 2002, she followed in Dad’s footsteps, starting as a financial representative for the company. With a job in place, she checked off the next thing on the ‘you’re an adult now’ to-do list: homeownership. “I thought the thing to do was buy a house as soon as I could. You grow up thinking that’s what you do,” she said.

The townhouse she found was spacious, complete with a wet bar and patio. But over the years, her two-hour bus commute to downtown Minneapolis gave her plenty of time to think “What am I giving up for this place?”

Then a trip to El Salvador in November 2008 for a Habitat for Humanity project made her realize just how many things she owned and how little most of it meant to her. “I decided I had to make some changes in my life,” she said. So she sold her townhouse last fall for a bit less than she owed, found a good family for her piano and gave away a lot of her things.

Zinter set a goal to find an apartment for $500 per month—$1,000 less than her old mortgage payment. (The new place isn’t quite that low, but she no longer needs a bus pass). And that’s on top of her already impressive savings habits. She has more than $130,000 in retirement accounts, despite starting to invest during a decade when the stock market hasn’t been kind to aggressive young investors like herself. Her emergency savings is fully funded as well.

Many of us only realize after we buy the big house and the closets of clothing and toys that we have too much stuff and too many financial obligations. Unwinding ourselves from the financial burdens of a big house payment or car lease can be difficult, especially in this economy.

If you’re inspired by Zinter’s decision to downsize at a time in life when most people are trading up, how should you start?

-Make incremental changes. Zinter didn’t chuck all of her stuff at once. “I would often take laps around my house and ask myself ‘what I could get rid of without regretting my decision?’ If she realized she was only keeping something for sentimental value—like that large collection of T-shirts from high school that she never wore—she took pictures before chucking the stuff. She admits that she sometimes misses the oversized chair that went with her couch. “But I can only sit in one place at a time,” she said.

-Think about what you want, not what you think you’re supposed to want. When she decided to sell her townhouse, “It felt like in society’s eyes I was going backwards. I went from owning a nice place to renting this very small space.” Even today, she feels as if she needs to explain herself. Otherwise, people assume she’s forced to live below her means because she’s deep in debt.

-Save your money. “Even if you earn little interest, at least you saved it.”

-Fewer fixed expenses equals more freedom. “In my mind, if I get dependent on spending money every week or two on something, it becomes a fixed expense and I try to minimize those as much as possible. I guess it’s the freedom issue again. I’ve minimized what I have to spend each month, and the rest is mine for whatever I want to do with it.”

(c) 2010, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

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“It’s a hot item,” said Scott Redmon, owner of Alfresco Living in Maitland, Fla. “And the outdoor kitchen is becoming a lot more than a grill and a sink in the corner of the porch. It’s a whole entertainment system. People have a higher expectation for their exterior spaces since HGTV came around.”

Outdoor kitchens are popular because they are fun to live with, said Russ Faulk, vice-president of product development at Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet in Kalamazoo, Mich. “They add to the quality of life for the homeowner. Preparing a meal outdoors is not a chore, it’s an occasion, a reason to have friends over and enjoy the process.” In addition, an outdoor kitchen expands a home’s living space and adds to its value, he said. “The return on your investment is comparable to an indoor kitchen redo.”

Since the economic downturn, “People have been unable to sell their homes, so they are starting to upgrade with better landscaping and outdoor kitchens, spending more time at home,” said Sue Fern, manager of the Florida chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The built-in grill was the start of the outdoor-kitchen trend, said Faulk. “Then came the sink, the refrigerator, a counter for food prep, cabinets for storage—pretty much what you’d have in an indoor kitchen.” As more equipment is added, outdoor “rooms” are becoming larger and more covered, he said. Seating areas are added, along with outdoor TV sets, fire pits and water features.

The grill—fired by gas, wood or charcoal—is still the heart of the outdoor kitchen. Especially popular are hybrid grills, which can be switched from gas to wood or charcoal, depending on what is being cooked, said Faulk. “There’s nothing like grilling fish over an oak fire.”

Pizza ovens are starting to threaten the grill’s reign as king of the outdoor kitchen. Oven designs range from large, wood-fired brick and clay ovens that take several hours to heat up, to compact countertop models fired by gas that are ready for baking pizzas in 20 minutes.

Also gaining popularity in outdoor kitchens are keg-tappers, wine chillers, ice makers and warming cabinets.

When designing an outdoor kitchen, be sure to look for low-maintenance equipment, said Faulk, “or you defeat the purpose of carefree outdoor cooking.”

Also, make sure any cabinetry is designed to keep the contents clean and dry in inclement weather; install good task and ambient lighting and choose counter-top material that is stain- and grease-resistant and stays cool in direct sunlight.

“Get counter-top samples, leave them in the sun and see how hot they get,” advised Faulk. “Heat-retention is not always related to color. Some light colors get hotter than dark colors.”

He also offers these cost-cutting tips: “Design the outdoor kitchen against the house to reduce the cost of getting utilities to the space. And buy the best grill you can afford.”

When designing an outdoor kitchen, “Consider how the space will be used: as a personal refuge or a place to entertain and be social; as a place to cook and eat, or to drink and socialize,” said Eduardo Xol, exterior designer on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and celebrity designer for hayneedle.com.

And remember, indoor-outdoor living helps balance the soul. It keeps you connected with nature and helps you become more aware of living green.

(c) 2010, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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“Passing this bill was no easy task. To get there, we had to overcome the furious lobbying of an array of powerful interest groups and a partisan minority determined to block change,” Obama said in a pre-signing speech, surrounded by cheering congressional leaders and administration members.

Alternating between hitting Wall Street and acknowledging its economic importance, the president said that the historic Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 seeks to strike a balance that would protect consumers while allowing the vital financial sector to prosper.

“The fact is the financial industry is central to our nation’s ability to grow, to prosper, to compete and to innovate. This reform will foster innovation, not hamper it. It is designed to make sure everybody follows the same set of rules,” he said. “Unless your business model depends on cutting corners or bilking customers, you’ve got nothing to fear from reform.”

The signing marked the third major legislative accomplishment for Obama, after an $800 billion stimulus and tax-cut package and a regulatory revamp of the health care sector. Still, the president has slumped in the opinion polls, dragged down by a sluggish economy. Polls also suggest that the broader public is ambivalent about the new measure.

To combat that, Obama and congressional Democrats went to extremes to highlight all the consumer provisions in the legislation. There are numerous measures to combat predatory lending, and the president invited borrower Robin Fox of Rome, Ga., to the speech. She’d been hit with unexpected interest rate increases on a credit card balance. “With this law, unfair rate hikes, like the one that hit Robin, will end for good,” Obama said.

Underscoring the historic nature of the legislation, which updates many rules that date to the 1930s, the televised signing ceremony wasn’t at the White House but at the Ronald Reagan Building, in a large auditorium where about 400 invited guests could bask in the accomplishment.

The legislation seeks to fix much of what went wrong in the lead-up to the nation’s deep financial crisis. It gives regulators the power to dissolve large, interconnected financial institutions and allows the Federal Reserve to break up companies that it thinks are so large that their failure would pose a risk to the U.S. and global economy.

The lack of this authority forced the Bush administration and a Democratic-led Congress to choose unpopular bank bailouts over a disruptive bankruptcy process that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned could have led to a global economic depression.

“The bill isn’t perfect, since it represents what was politically achievable in an election year. But it sets some important starting points for more detailed work in areas where oversight has been lacking, such as viewing risk from a systemic point of view and increased consumer protection,” said Scott McCleskey, the author of the new book When Free Markets Fail, which seeks to explain the crisis in layman’s terms. “In the end, though, the crisis made abundantly clear the fact that we need more regulation because the markets have become too complex to regulate themselves.”

For ordinary Americans, the legislation will be felt most directly through the creation of a new and independent Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. It will police credit extended to consumers, be it mortgages, credit cards, student loans, auto loans or even payday loans.

“For the first time, families will have a tough, independent cop in Washington to help clear out the tricks and traps hidden in consumer credit agreements,” Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard University professor who’s credited with developing the idea of the bureau, said in a statement.

Gail Hillebrand, a senior attorney for the advocacy group Consumers Union, added that “millions of Americans have been hit by shady loans, hidden fees and surprise rate increases, and this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will take dead aim at these kinds of problems.”

Business groups frowned on the new law. “This legislation, while drafted with the best intentions, paints the U.S. business community with a broad brush and will have many unintended consequences for the more than 12,000 nonfinancial publicly traded companies,” Larry Burton, the executive director of the Business Roundtable, said in a statement.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which aggressively lobbied against the legislation, didn’t pull punches in its statement upon signing. “Such a broad, sweeping bill epitomizes a law with unintended consequences that creates more uncertainty for American businesses,” said Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber’s president and CEO. “For years the chamber has called for reform that modernizes our financial system. Yet this law is like adding new paint on an old car; it’s still not going to run at the pace and with the agility that is currently demanded.”

Regulators will sit together on a special council to collectively study risks to the broader financial system. They’ll be empowered to order that banks keep more capital on hand to guard against future losses, and they’ll have knowledge that they didn’t have before about the complex financial instruments called over-the-counter derivatives. The size of the market for these private bets between parties is valued in the trillions of dollars, yet these deals largely have been hidden from regulators.

Now, most trading in these complex instruments will be done on public exchanges or clearinghouses, and regulators will have the authority to limit a financial player’s overall holdings in contracts for oil, natural gas, wheat or other commodities if it appears that anyone is seizing so much of the market that prices could be manipulated.

“It gives us the transparency, tools and teeth we need to better regulate the markets we already oversee and to bring light to the more than $600 trillion over-the-counter markets which are currently unregulated,” said Bart Chilton, a commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). “Many key items will be decided in the near future: How do we actually oversee and regulate the OTC markets? How do we implement position limits? And how are we going to use some of these new professional-grade regulatory tools to police these markets? For example, CFTC has had only one successful manipulation prosecution in 35 years. The law was broken but the bill gives us new authority to go after disruptive trading practices.”

(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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“As our most recent member surveys have indicated, builders remain very cautious in light of the sluggish pace of the economic recovery and the hesitancy they are seeing among potential home buyers,” noted Bob Jones, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “However, today’s report is actually somewhat encouraging, because it indicates that single-family production is stabilizing following an expected lull that occurred with the end of the home buyer tax credit program.”

“The government’s figures suggest that single-family housing production may be finding a bottom following the tax credits,” agreed NAHB Vice President and Senior Economist Bernard Markstein. “Over the next several months, we expect to see some improvement in both housing starts and sales activity as buyers come forward to take advantage of the very attractive home prices, historically low mortgage rates and excellent selection that characterize today’s new-home marketplace. However, builders continue to confront significant challenges in obtaining financing for viable new projects, and this problem remains a formidable obstacle to economic growth.”

Nearly all of the 5% decline in housing production was on the multifamily side this June, which fell 21.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 95,000 units. Meanwhile, single-family starts hardly budged, with a 0.7% decline to 454,000 units. All four regions posted declines in overall housing production, with an 11.3% reduction in the Northeast, a 6.9% decline in the Midwest, a 2.4% decline in the South and a 5.9% decline in the West.

Meanwhile, nationwide permit issuance, an indicator of future building activity, rose 2.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 586,000 units in June. While single-family permits fell 3.4% to 421,000 units for the month, that decline was due entirely to a drop-off in the South, with every other region holding steady or better on the single-family side. Multifamily permits rose 19.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 165,000 units in June. Combined single- and multifamily permit issuance was up 32.3% in the Northeast, down 10.8% in the Midwest, down 3.1% in the South and up 9.7% in the West in June.

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His natural-gas bill for two tankless water heaters and a fireplace averages $25 a month.

“My focus with this house was energy-efficiency,” says Fallman, owner of Fallman Design & Construction in Clermont, Fla. “It’s so easy to do. It’s a great marketing angle. And it’s the right thing to do.”

The key to the energy-efficiency of the lakefront home, which is certified by the Florida Green Building Coalition, is its south-facing orientation, said Fallman, who has made green-building his specialty.

Before starting construction, he commissioned a solar-path study to track the angle of the sun in winter and summer. He used the information to design a home that would be flooded with sunlight during the cooler months, but shaded by porches, balconies and extra-wide roof overhangs when temperatures soar.

“It’s the single thing a builder can do to make a home more efficient without much more expense,” he says.

The three-garage home on the site of the historic Clermont Yacht Club, which was torn down in the early 1950s, is also angled to maximize views across two-mile-wide Lake Minnehaha. Facing the lake on the first floor are the kitchen, dining room, living room and master suite, which either open onto screened porches or are shaded by wide roof overhangs and high-performance windows—tinted, Low-E4 and argon-filled. Upstairs, covered balconies or roof overhangs shade the windows and walls of the three bedrooms and loft area. An apartment above a second garage has similar features.

To receive certification from the green building coalition, a home must be inspected by a green certifier and an energy rater, Fallman says. The green certifier makes as many as 10 checks of the site and home before and during construction, checking for items such as site drainage and properly sealed plumbing pipes, doors and windows. The energy rater conducts a duct-blast test, blower-door test and thermal-envelope test to determine how airtight the home is.

The Fallman home has a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) score of 62 out of 100. The lower the score, the more energy-efficient the home. For a home to be Energy Star-rated, it must score 85 or lower.

At present, about 70% of the payback for building green is improved energy-efficiency, Fallman says. Spending $3,000-$5,000 on equipment upgrades and an additional $2,000-$3,000 on green construction will pay for itself in 5-10 years, he figures.

Certainly, better air-handling equipment cuts down on dust and indoor humidity; better insulation creates a quieter home; drip irrigation in the yard saves water.

The Fallman home, which is on the market for $1.1 million, also features these energy-efficient elements:

-Fifty-year shingle roof with Icynene spray-foam insulation, which keeps cool air in, heat and dampness out; protects against dust and insects; and improves structural strength.
-Concrete-block walls with rigid insulation on the first floor, and 2×6 frame with R-19 batt insulation on the second floor.
-Semi-air conditioned, 200-square-foot attic, which keeps ducts about 30 degrees cooler in the summer so the air-conditioner doesn’t have to work as hard.
-Low-E4 windows with tinted, high-performance glass and wood frames which don’t conduct heat.
-Non-conductive fiberglass doors with insulated glass.
-Dual-compressor 20 SEER (seasonal energy efficiency ratio) air-conditioner and timeable bathroom fans for humidity control.
-Two tankless gas water heaters.
-Gas fireplace with electric ignition.
-Windows at the top of the stairs to vent rising hot air and ceiling fans in many rooms.
-Energy-Star appliances, which use less energy.
-Compact fluorescent lighting.

(c) 2010, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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