Green Builder Magazine

Jul 20, 2026 10:41:50 AM COGNITION Weekly Hot Take Jennifer Castenson 1 min read Homes with high performance can deliver better value every day and well into the future. When you or your purchasing manager are making product selections, what do they have in mind? Cutting costs? Supply chain logistics? Installation requirements? What if you and your team had the buyer in mind? What if you were thinking about systemization?

Jul 17, 2026 9:44:10 AM Resilient Housing Alan Naditz 2 min read An historic home destroyed by fire comes back better than ever. They call it the “Queen of Zero.” Completed in November 2024, this Hyattsville, Md., home represents a story rebirth: a Phoenix of a house rising from the ashes to become a one-of-a-kind Queen Anne Victorian aligned with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH) standard.

Jul 16, 2026 9:41:39 AM Matt Power, Editor-In-Chief 3 min read Unless you’re a banker, a big builder, or an investor, don’t expect much. A few days ago, Congress finally responded to the nation’s housing affordability crisis with what lawmakers dubbed the the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. The final law retained the attractive title “Homes Are for People, Not Corporations.” That label no longer applies.

Jul 15, 2026 3:23:29 PM Green Builder Media Network Podcasts Cati O'Keefe 2 min read This week's biggest housing stories explore affordability, data center pushback, and the surprising forces shaping the homes we build versus the ones we want. What if stronger building codes don't make homes more expensive? What if America's oversized homes aren't really about excess—but about uncertainty? And what will happen if states or municipalities try to give AI data centers the heave-ho?

Jul 14, 2026 9:13:02 AM Resilient Housing Alan Naditz 3 min read This Earth (and earth)-friendly home puts the ‘green’ in Greenwich. A couple who spent their careers in healthcare wanted a home where they could age in place and that reflected their values: the importance of wellness, connections to nature, and a minimized carbon footprint. They got their wish with the 5,700-square-foot single-family home in Greenwich, Connecticut that they completed in 2025.

Jul 13, 2026 1:50:32 PM Today's Homeowner Victoria Muharsky 1 min read We're giving away a $1,000 REI gift card for the fifth year running, and all it takes to enter is one nature photo. Somewhere between the morning commute and the evening inbox, it's easy to forget that the outdoors exists at all. Our routines pull us indoors and keep us there, and most of us don't notice how disconnected we've gotten until we're standing outside again, wondering why we waited so long to come back.

Jul 10, 2026 12:52:34 PM COGNITION Weekly Hot Take Jennifer Castenson 1 min read More frequent climate emergencies are threatening homes like never before. You can drive change and protect homeowners. This summer is delivering heat domes, hurricanes and flooding across the country and homes are getting wiped out or otherwise undergoing irreparable damage. Not to mention the impact to a homeowner’s health and comfort, which can be profound both short term and long term.

Jul 9, 2026 9:05:44 AM Value per Square Foot Matt Power, Editor-In-Chief 2 min read Americans won’t embrace smaller homes until they trust society again. America builds big houses. We’ve heard many reasons why: Consumers want it all. Builders make better margins. It’s a cultural expectation. But what if the deeper reason for our square footage fetish stems from anxiety, not from entitlement? Before I explain, consider the miniscule housing sizes people accept in certain other countries.

Jul 8, 2026 4:46:22 PM Green Builder Media Network Podcasts Cati O'Keefe 4 min read This Week's Sustainable Building News covers major policy decisions, smarter manufactured homes, changing buyer expectations, and why energy performance is becoming impossible to ignore. The fate of one of America's biggest housing reform packages is now in President Trump's hands. The bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is sitting on his desk, with a Friday deadline looming.

Jul 7, 2026 10:34:53 AM Today's HomeownerValue per Square Foot Michele Lerner, Associate Editor 6 min read Advocating for a green appraisal can generate a more accurate home value assessment. Jan Green, a real estate agent with HomeSmart Elite Group in Scottsdale, Ariz., knows personally the transformative power of green improvements. Green retrofitted her 1970s Scottsdale home from an energy vampire into a Net Zero property with several years of renovations.