Financing Energy Efficiency Through Mortgage Loans Untapped Opportunities for Lenders and Building Owners
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MARKET ANALYSIS FINANCING ENERGY EFFICIENCY THROUGH MORTGAGE LOANS UNTAPPED OPPORTUNITIES FOR LENDERS AND BUILDING OWNERS Imagine closing the deal INTRODUCTION on your next big real For decades, mortgage loans have been the primary means of financing estate investment. The residential and commercial building ownership.1 The lending community’s use of traditional, multi-year loans for both commercial and multifamily properties lighting upgrades, a new alike spread costs over a long period to lessen financial burden for buyers, but high-efficiency HVAC, until recently, building owners who sought a more energy-efficient building and energy-efficient needed to obtain non-traditional financing and perform energy retrofits sepa- rate from a traditional mortgage. The following market analysis examines the façade upgrades will current landscape for building owners and lenders seeking to integrate energy elevate your investment, efficiency and utility savings into building assessments and retrofit plans, and increase the overall to utilize the data to enhance traditional loans. The analysis was performed by the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) and Lawrence Berkeley National value, and the costs will Laboratory (LBNL), with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). be rolled directly into It examines real properties that successfully utilize existing programs to help your mortgage. This building owners account for energy efficiency during mortgage underwriting, and offers guidelines for the mortgage lending community and building hypothetical may not be owners on how to roll energy efficiency retrofits into traditional mortgages in far from reality soon. an effective and seamless manner. TAKING THE FIRST STEP WITH BUILDING ASSESSMENTS According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, in 2016, lenders closed $491 billion in mortgage loans.2 Despite the many benefits energy efficiency and sustainability yield for the real estate market, energy performance is frequently a distant afterthought when it comes to traditional mortgages. The industry still does not effectively incorporate energy efficiency into most commercial, multifamily, and residential loans. However, this new analysis indicates market leaders are closer than ever to marrying the two while simultaneously reducing property default risks. Currently, only a small number of organized and/or subsidized programs exist to help building owners account for energy efficiency during mortgage underwriting. Fannie Mae runs some of the most well-known green financing programs in the multifamily sector. The Small Business Association (SBA), and smaller community development financial institutions (CDFIs), such as the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), also run successful initiatives aimed at removing the upfront cost burden of energy efficiency retrofits and rolling them into building acquisition or loan refinancing. The drive to incorporate energy efficiency into the core of property financ- ing, that is—at the mortgage level, can and should be steered by the lending community. This analysis finds that while building owners, architects, technical assessors, and project managers frequently request a building assessment, also known as a property condition assessment (PCA) or a physical needs assess- ment (PNA), prior to acquisition or refinancing, the assessments rarely include FINANCING ENERGY EFFICIENCY THROUGH MORTGAGE LOANS the energy performance characteristics of the building. If efficiency is considered, the results are not used to inform the final loan proceeds. A crucial way for stakeholders to integrate energy efficiency at the mortgage level is to incorporate it as a core component of building assessments. Building owners and lend- ers should seek PCAs that account for energy performance, introduce energy efficiency retrofits during the underwriting process, and actively engage organizations already underwriting energy efficiency. By taking this step, lenders have a unique opportunity to increase mortgage loan portfolios, reduce property default risk, and provide a needed service to building owners. Property owners stand to save on operating costs, increase their net operating income (NOI), and be able to market their green, high-performance building to prospective tenants. THE CURRENT MARKET Energy efficiency and traditional mortgage loans are rarely part of the same dialogue. A host of energy efficiency financing options exist for commercial building owners, including property assessed clean energy (PACE), CDFI offerings, utility incentive In leaving energy programs, energy service companies (ESCOs), and a variety of smaller loan programs. efficiency out Through the Better Buildings Initiative, DOE has made a concentrated effort in recent years to incorporate financing discussions into the broader building efficiency dialogue. of property And there is no shortage of multinational banks offering traditional mortgage loans for assessments commercial, multifamily, and residential properties. The inherent missing link in the mort- and mortgage gage market is consideration of energy efficiency in the mortgage underwriting process. In leaving energy efficiency out of property assessments and mortgage underwriting, underwriting, lenders are missing the opportunity to grow their loan portfolios, reduce risk of default,3 lenders are and lower environmental impact. missing the A 2016 survey conducted by IMT with support from DOE suggested that there is a high level of interest among lenders to include energy efficiency in PCAs. As a follow-up opportunity to this scoping study, and to learn what market leaders are saying about energy effi- to grow their ciency financing, IMT and LBNL asked over 70 companies and individuals if they, or their loan portfolios, company, took energy efficiency into consideration during a PCA, and if they used that information to augment the permissible loan amount. Put simply, we wanted to know if reduce risk of the industry was using energy audits to inform mortgage financing decisions. default, and lower Among those contacted were real estate companies, multinational banks, small environmental banks, green banks, architecture firms, appraisers, and CDFIs. Out of the 73 institutions contacted, only five indicated that they use a building’s energy performance to inform impact. loan value. Those companies or institutions that reported considering energy efficiency at the financing or underwriting level did so only as part of a larger national program or product. Notable existing programs or lending institutions include the following: Fannie Mae Green Rewards, Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), and the Small Business Association’s (SBA) CDC/504 Loan. Each of these programs are profiled in this analysis. While the majority of institutions we contacted do not actively consider energy efficiency during their financing or PCA processes, a notable few expressed intention to update their practices in medium-term corporate planning. Some forward-think - ing real estate corporations are beginning to integrate energy efficiency into their business practices and encourage building owners and tenants to do the same by going back to their lenders with data on expected savings. When further examined, the analysis indicates owners are looking to non-traditional loans to finance energy efficiency projects, and likewise traditional lenders are leaving energy efficiency to third-party institutions. A reduced default risk and higher loan proceeds are two of the multiple opportuni- ties available when lenders take energy efficiency into consideration. The current market offerings leave owner savings on the table, detract from possible loan portfolios, and 2 lead to inefficient buildings. This market failure can be attributed to a lack of synchrony between owners and lenders as well as an overall misunderstanding of energy efficiency financing opportunities. THE TRIED AND TESTED MULTIFAMILY MODEL: FANNIE MAE GREEN REWARDS Perhaps the best known energy and water efficiency financing option available to multi- family communities is the Green Rewards program run by Fannie Mae, one of the leading financial institutions in the U.S. Throughout the first quarter of 2017, Fannie Mae created a $9 billion loan portfolio. Within this portfolio, multifamily properties that target a 20 percent or higher reduction in annual energy or water use are eligible to receive a lower interest rate, increased loan proceeds, and an energy audit. This translates into utility savings for both tenants who pay their own bills, and building owners who pay the mort- gage and/or portions of tenant utility costs. The loans are issued to the market as “Green Mortgage Backed Securities,” creating a new investment vehicle for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investors. Given a steady increase in program participation over the last two years, these numbers indicate an upward trajectory in multifamily property owners’ awareness of energy efficiency and a growing desire to capitalize on its benefits. Securing a Fannie Mae Green Rewards loan is not complicated, but it does require coordination between multiple actors. Below are two properties that have undergone ASHRAE Level 2 audits as the initial step in their goals to receive financing via the Fannie Mae Green Rewards program.4 Both of these properties entered into multi-million dollar loans financed by Fannie Mae. Table 1 outlines each building’s profile and energy con- sumption prior to completing any energy conservation