New real estate business is Enlightening
Paul Snyder , paul.snyder@dailyreporter.com
Posted September 26, 2006
Al Gore, for one, would be proud.
After all, all it took was a viewing of his recent movie, An Inconvenient Truth, to give Brent Sainsbury and Jenny Persha an idea: an environmentally conscious real estate group.
“Jenny’s got a bit of an environmental background, and she took me to see the movie,” Sainsbury said. “I was just shocked by the movie. I come from a very business-oriented background, and the common notion seems to be that the business field and environmental field are always at odds and can’t work together. You’d be surprised how easily they can.”
Persha’s background in the Sierra Club and Sainsbury’s experience in real estate made starting up their new venture, Enlightening Real Estate, seem a solid idea. They’ve already taken on their first client and are getting enthusiastic reactions from potential homebuyers in the Madison area.
And Sainsbury and Persha are talking about saving energy in any number of ways with the business, even down to walking tours of the group’s featured properties to save on gas and carbon emissions from automobiles.
Enlightening’s service statement reads that the group will:
- Provide clients with an energy evaluation
- Provide clients with compact fluorescent light bulbs
- Efficiently market homes using enviro-friendly methods
- Pledge to reduce carbon emissions
- Stay in continuous contact with clients
And they take every point seriously. When asked if they would ever look at expanding the group outside of Madison, they say growth will be measured.
“We hope that people in other cities throughout Wisconsin just pick up on the idea,” Persha said.
“Trying to expand the business to Milwaukee or somewhere -- on our own -- might be a little detrimental to start with,” Sainsbury added. “I mean, just the amount of carbon emissions we’d put out in driving back and forth to Milwaukee seems to defeat the purpose a little.”
And Madison seemed to be a fertile starting ground, anyway.
“This is a pretty progressive city,” Sainsbury said. “It’s not a bad market to try and get things going.”
Persha agreed: “We know where pockets of interest are, and there’s definitely a big one here.”
They’ve already got some strong backers. Focus on Energy has teamed with the two to help perform energy evaluations on homes, and Mark Kanvik with Focus said that even old, drafty houses can be brought up to a state capable of receiving an Energy Star label.
Lower energy bills
Sainsbury said that once an initial energy evaluation is done, clients are provided with an improvement analysis and shown what improvements will ultimately pay for themselves (a list of quick and helpful ideas can be found on the group’s Web site, www.enlighteningrealestate.com). Enlightening will then bid out the upgrade work. In addition to gaining energy credits from Focus on Energy, buyers are also eligible for federal tax credits, and pretty soon money that might normally go toward monthly payments for gas and electricity are going toward mortgage payments.
“There no longer has to be an instance where a buyer would say, ‘Well I love this house, but the amount we’d spend on energy would just be too much,’” Sainsbury said. “People are interested in saving money, and in the long run, that’s what they’re going to be excited about with this. Saving energy is a nice byproduct.”
Kanvik said he’s surprised no one thought of it sooner.
“This is something new and entrepreneurial,” he said. “All the times you thought ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if they made it a law that buildings had to be more energy-efficient?’ Well now these two are spinning it on the free market. I’m excited, and as long as the customers will have it, this will catch on quickly.”
Persha, meanwhile, said that while getting the business rolling is the main goal, getting the idea out is almost just important.
“It’s important that we educate people here, and make them know why this is so important,” she said. “Then, hopefully, we’ll see this catch on in cities elsewhere in Wisconsin.”
Sainsbury said the change is almost inevitable.
