Green features of CRE construction are increasingly becoming part of the conversation when transactions are being discussed, a new survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has found.
Buildings with features like energy efficiency, resilience and certified green features can enjoy a competitive advantage compared to buildings without them, and increasingly investors expect such features. Kilowatt hours, operating costs, indoor air quality and resilience to extreme weather are also receiving greater attention, according to the recently released August 2025 NAR survey.
Sustainability can also improve valuations. “Properties with green building certifications tend to have higher property values and are more energy efficient than buildings without a certification,” stated Jessica Lautz, NAR’s deputy chief economist.
Some 55% of agents and brokers reported that promoting energy efficiency was very or somewhat valuable in dealmaking. Trimming utility or operations cost emerged as the highest priority of clients (32%), followed by indoor air quality (26%), energy efficient windows and doors (25%), resilience to extreme weather events (21%) and efficient lighting (16%).
However, a lack of awareness about the benefits and uses of sustainable practices remains a challenge. Only 13% of survey respondents knew that their Commercial Information Exchange (CIE) -- where brokers, owners, and investors share data on properties (retail, office, industrial, land, etc.), transactions and market stats– also had green data fields.
Awareness was most common in the Northeast and lowest in the South. However, these fields were utilized by a majority of respondents who had them.
Only 37% of respondents had completed some form of training on sustainable elements in CRE, such as energy-efficient appliances, renewable energy systems and eco-friendly building materials.
Respondents also sought information on how to value solar panels and buildings certified as sustainable. Other concerns included available lending options and liability concerns about misrepresenting green features.
While green building certifications may increase property values, as 30% of respondents reported, only 9% said they helped to reduce a property’s time on the market, and 66% said they did not know.
Converting commercial buildings to new uses had a better response. One-third of brokerage firms said they had experience working with commercial building repurposing. Of these, 11% had experience with office-to-non-residential conversion, 10% with office-to-residential or retail/mall-to-non-residential, 4% with mall-to-residential, and 10% with other types of repurposing.
In the year ahead, “portfolio risk” ranging from extreme weather to air quality, will be one of the top 10 CRE issues to watch, according to Counselors of Real Estate, an NAR-affiliated organization. “Going forward, risk and resiliency expertise is likely to develop as a specific subset within commercial real estate,” stated the organization’s global chair, John Hentschel.
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