of 2015
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Est ab li s h e d 1 8 7 2
THE
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WEEK OF MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 2015
FINANCIAL
SERVICES
AND
REAL
ESTATE
WEEKLY
FOR
MASSACHUSETTS
A Publication of The Warren Group BOSTON’S BLUEPRINT GOING GREEN MAY COST YOU
ENERGY EFFICIENT HOMES ADD A LAYER OF
COMPLEXITY
E
conomic stagnation was the bane of Boston when the last citywide master plan was completed in 1965. Jobs and residents were migrating to the suburbs, and most development was driven by urban renewal schemes that bulldozed entire neighborhoods. As the city finally takes another topdown look at its future, the population is rebounding. A $7-billion building boom is overwhelmingly driven by private investment, but new challenges have emerged in growing inequality, vulnerability to extreme weather and a fraying transportation network. Eight experienced architecture and urban planning firms responded to the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s request for proposals for Imagine Boston 2030, the city’s term for the upcoming master plan. BRA officials interviewed five finalists last week and are expected to select a firm to lead the Continued on Page 10
BY JIM MORRISON | BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
E
Average Retail Price Of Electricity To Residential Customers Cents Per Kilowatt Maine
Connecticut May 2015
23
May 2014
20.18
15.75 14.40
New Hampshire
19.51 17.99
18.64 18.08
Massachusetts
20.71
Vermont
17.50
MIGRATION PROCRASTINATION
Liability Shift Looms Experts Say Market Saturation Of EMV Is A Long Way Off
17.63
New England
Rhode Island
Circles 2030 On Calendar As Milestone BY STEVE ADAMS BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
Green Homes May Be Good For The Environment, But They Can Be Tricky Sales nergy costs in the Northeast are the highest in the country and the U.S. Energy Information Administration says they’re only going up in the foreseeable future. That’s one of the biggest factors driving the increase in energy efficient homebuilding and remodeling, but the proliferation of these houses can make for tricky transactions for homebuyers and agents. Craig Foley is a Realtor and chief of energy solutions with RE/MAX Lineage in Somerville. Through the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Foley trains Realtors from across the country in that organization’s green designation, which consists of three, two-hour courses on the energy efficient components of residential homes. Foley says agents need more training in the basics of energy efficient features to market those features more effectively. He said he has yet to meet an agent who can accurately tell him where to find the EnergySTAR certification on homes built after 2000 – and they’re always in the same place. “It’s inside the electrical panel door on the bottom right,” Foley said. Foley published a study in 2014 that looked at Massachusetts home sales in 2013 and found some alarming data. When inputting data into the MLS, many agents either didn’t fill the data fields having to do with energy efficiency correctly, thus underreported these features, while others overemphasized them, a practice known as “greenwashing.” “For every single-family home listed that was green certified, 1.5 were not correctly listed,” Foley said. “The evidence suggests that 200 additional single-family sales should have been reported as green-certified properties.”
City Takes A Look In The Mirror
20.33 18.17
18.18
Continued on Page 8 Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
CONTENTS
In Person .................................................................. 7
Commercial & Industrial ........................................ 10
Points ....................................................................... 4
Residential .............................................................. 8
Classified Sections ................................................. 13
By The Numbers ....................................................... 6
Banking & Lending .................................................. 9
Records Section...................................................... B1
BY LAURA ALIX BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
E
MV, also known as “chip and pin,” has been heralded as a panacea to fraud in the wake of high-profile breaches like those at Target and Home Depot, but with the October 2015 liability shift date fast approaching, are America’s community banks and credit unions ready to hit that deadline? “Oh, not even close,” said Sarah Grotta, director of the debit advisory service at the Mercator Advisory Group in Maynard. “Even though we have some of the largest financial institutions issuing EMV debit now and on compressed timeframes, my prediction is we’ll see about 25 percent of the U.S. debit portfolio reissued with EMV by the end of 2015.” In preparing her recent research note for Mercator, “Predictions for the U.S. Migration to EMV Debit Cards,” Grotta talked with various industry stakeholders about some of the barriers to EMV market saturation on the debit side and reasoned out that 25 percent figure. Continued on Page 9