The first reports on residential energy benchmarking indicate that older buildings are more efficient than new ones and that the worst performing neighborhoods seem to correlate with high asthma rates — which may correlate with poverty and/or public housing and/or old boilers, but details need to be analyzed. The full report should be available here later today or Monday.
Some of the energy data analysis may be aided by census data put online this week by the City Planning Department. The Census Fact Finder lets you search the latest federal demographic information by census tract or neighborhood. We had to laugh at one broker who noted on seeing the release that he could probably lose his license for giving the information directly to prospective buyers or renters, but not for giving them the government link.
Builders and owners in New York have received $169,280 in manufacturers rebates from the NYSBA Rebate Program for stuff they were buying anyway. DID YOU GET YOUR SHARE? All you have to do is compare what you have purchased for new construction or renovation against the dozens of participating manufacturers and file a form. You don’t even need receipts. Free money. Check it out. The deadline for first half purchases is August 24th.