Rep. April Connors opposes new energy regulations for single-family home sellers

I do appreciate that this bill is not a mandate um but it does authorize cities and counties to put these energy codes onto their homes when folks are selling them I have serious concerns about this bill uh mainly because I am in the industry of of selling homes uh some of my concerns are as we're not ready for something like this who are going to perform all of these energy audits when you the US Department of energy requires a certification which I believe is in this bill that those folks have to be certified to perform the audit who who is going to prepare it um if a city decides they're going to do this program if I want to sell my house tomorrow and I call my real estate agent because interest rates went from 6 and 1 12% which they were this morning to 5% tomorrow how long is it going to take me to get one of these energy audits to actually put my home onto the active real estate market to me it's an interference between a home seller and their ability to sell their home other problems that I have it were somewhat addressed in the amendment which is the stigma it's going to put on homes especially our older homes and our homes in our marginalized communities when I sell homes in in communities where the houses are less expensive often times we have older furnaces we have single Paine windows and we're going to put a score on these homes and we are going to effectively deflate the value of them by doing so also super confusing to me would be I sell homes in six different cities so if Richland has this policy because they've decided to do it and and Kenwick does not is that going to affect the home seller's ability to sell that home in that specific Community because one adjoining city does not have the same regulations so it's going to encourage Richland people to move to Richland instead of Kenwick because they can see their home score um I also have concerns that it's going to creep into the lending industry and so if I were going to go buy a home and my lender said I want to see the home score on that home home then then what happens to your your interest rate potential also just to really wrap up quickly Madam speaker I'm going to encourage this this is a very slippery slope these programs are available through utility companies and when I sell a home and and a homeowner wants to know we can call the utility company and ask them for their for their amount on their uh bills thank you