"Green" housing will be featured by the Regional Multiple Listing Service next year as buyers seek environmentally friendly homes that save energy.

Portland-area appraisers and real estate agents will be able to search for new homes that have met national standards for earth-friendly construction because the RMLS, the region's most authoritative source of information on home sales, has quietly decided to incorporate the leading green building programs in its listings starting early next year.

The service will enable real estate professionals to search for houses that have met green building standards as easily as they search for houses for sale by high school or ZIP code.

The change will help builders and homeowners realize the value energy efficient homes add, said Sean Penrith, executive director of Earth Advantage Inc., a leading green building certification program.

It will also allow agents and appraisers to compare groups of properties with and without energy efficiency standards to see how they affect sales prices, possibly encouraging lenders to give bigger loans to borrowers with efficient houses, Penrith said.

Real estate agent Kria Lacher of Meadows Group Realtors Inc. drafted the proposal, said George Perkins, who chaired the RMLS committee that approved the new service.

"Energy efficiency and green is important to most people now," Perkins said. "Conservation, being good stewards of what we have. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in our industry that doesn't think it's important."

"My belief is on the lower end, this is really going to help those buyers and sellers," Lacher said. "If we do have an energy crisis, those are the ones that are going to get hurt by it."

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