REALTORS® working in the City of Portland should be aware that as of January 1, 2018, all homes listed for sale in the City of Portland will require a home energy score report to be obtained and made accessible to any potential homebuyer.
RMLS™ has been working with Earth Advantage® to facilitate populating this important information to listings on RMLSweb. On December 6th, RMLS™ will release a “Load from Green Building Registry” button in the Green/Energy Supplement on RMLSweb. All homes with a listing address in the City of Portland will have this supplement automatically included in Listing Load. While we are introducing the ability to populate this information in a listing, the fields will remain unrequired.
When this button is selected, the listing address will be sent to the Green Building Registry database. If an address match occurs and the address has a home energy report on file, the score and report URL will autopopulate into the Green/Energy Supplement form. In addition, the home energy report and report URL will be added to the end of the Public Remarks field in data feeds, including IDX sites that get listing information from RMLS™.
RMLS™ is aware that some properties may have Portland addresses that do not fall within the jurisdiction of the City of Portland. The Administrative Rules of the Residential Energy Performance Rating and Disclosures, Part 3.3.1, provide guidelines to determine if a property must have a Home Energy Score. If a property has received a Home Energy Score but the “Load from Green Building Registry” button did not find a match, contact RMLS™ so we can make improvements to this process. This situation could occur if the address entered in Listing Load does not match the address recorded in the Green Building Registry. REALTORS® are encouraged to use PortlandMaps as a reference to find the correct listing address.
Read more about the City of Portland Home Energy Score program.
UPDATE (December 6, 2017):
The Home Energy Score button is now live on RMLSweb. Earth Advantage has produced a short demonstration of how the feature works, below. RMLS™ will produce a similar tutorial in the coming weeks.
So if a home was listed previously of Jan 1,2018 & will still be active does the owner need to obtain an energy score? And will it automatically expire and need to be relisted if score cannot be obtained by Jan 1?
Hello Susy, I have sent your first question to the City of Portland to clarify the timing of new listings and the effective date of the home energy score ordinance. Once I hear back, I will let you know. The only time that RMLS™ will change a listing to expired (EXP) status is when the expiration date has been reached.
Hello Susy, Here is the response I received from the City of Portland “The short answer to the question below is: no, if a home is listed prior to Jan 1 and stays on the market continuously, then it does not need to have a Home Energy Score. If the home is on the market prior to Jan 1 but is pulled and then relisted on or after Jan 1 (as we hear is common practice), then it would need a Home Energy Score to be in compliance.”
When will Washington, be included in this?
Hello Mary, At this time Washington will not be included, as it is a city ordinance for property located in the city of Portland.
Great question