Recovery Through Retrofit: Saving Homeowners Money — Part III

The Recovery Through Retrofit report of October, 2009 identified key factors preventing the growth of the home energy retrofit market.

One of that report’s achievements was to help generate more and better financing options for energy-saving home improvements.

One of these areas is PowerSaver Loans. The FHA PowerSaver is a new financing option, developed by the Federal Housing Administration. It will enable homeowners to make energy saving improvements to their homes through affordable, Federally-insured loans from private lenders. Homeowners can borrow money for terms as long as twenty years to make energy improvements of their choice, based on a list of proven, cost-effective measures developed by FHA and Department of Energy.

The government is also working on strengthening State and Local Financing. State revolving loan funds will allow consumers to borrow money for home energy improvement projects at low interest rates. And, once the energy retrofit loan is paid off, the principal and interest on the loan are reinvested into the revolving loan fund providing another homeowner the opportunity to make home energy improvements.

Finally, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing programs will allow state and local governments (as permitted by state law) to attach the cost of home energy improvements to a property instead of an individual borrower.

For more information, see Recovery Through Retrofit: Saving Homeowners Money and Creating Jobs.