On Earth Day 2010, Meritage set a new standard in being the first production builder to build 100% Energy Star certified homes, exceeding the minimum standards in every home we built.  On Earth Day 2011, Meritage adopted a new national building standard that enabled our consumers to reduce their utility bills by 50% in every new community. For the first time in the US, Net Zero homes were available and affordable to the public with an optional solar system.  We also built the first US EPA triple certified homes.  On Earth Day 2012, our pilot home was the first EPA triple certified home in Texas, first hybrid renewable energy system in Texas, and Meritage’s first integrated Nexia home control system.  This new standard combined leading building science, renewable energy, and home automation to reset the standard for our industry. It enabled consumers $75,000 in utility savings over a 30 year mortgage.  All of these features are available nationally. They represent the best home, best renewable energy, best home controls, and best EPA certifications available.

For Earth Day 2013, we redefined what ‘best’ could be.  Instead of utilizing 2×4 pieces of wood, we built six new homes with a 7” thick insulated concrete panel (ICP) as a part of our MGV5 pilot research project.

These homes are cut in a factory, heavily insulated, and structured with steel and concrete. They are more precise, stronger, rot and mold proof and extremely energy-efficient.  ICPs allow for more durable, higher performing homes than those utilizing conventional construction.  Making ICPs cost effective changes the entire value equation for homes.

While these homes represent an engineering advancement that resets the potential for sustainable buildings worldwide, it is the specific benefits in improving the quality of life for their residents that offer the true opportunity to re-define ‘best.’ ICPs block air and moisture, improving indoor air quality, mold and dust into a home.  The structure and insulation make a home cleaner, quieter, safer, termite resistant, and stronger than conventional construction.  The paneling process ensures greater quality, consistency, quicker build time and less dependency on field construction.  Together with the last four years of innovation, these new homes represent the best structure, design, performance, controls and quality of any new home builder.

That is the point of Earth Day – to demonstrate a better way to do things.  More efficient, durable, healthier homes that not only make the occupants’ quality of life better, but can be made with local materials and not have a great impact forests.  Meritage is currently piloting six of these new types of homes at its community in Goodyear, AZ.  These homes are inspected and certified through the US EPA Energy Star program. Additionally, through Meritage’s optional solar program, they can even become net-zero homes.  Once you can have the best, good enough doesn’t really seem acceptable.

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We always strive for convenient locations, affordable prices and beautiful floor plans. But we also want to provide our homeowners with homes that work as hard as they do. Imagine having more money in your pocket to spend however you wish, month after month. That’s what having a truly energy-efficient home should mean. Owning a Meritage home means owning a home packed with energy-efficient features capable of saving you up to 80% or $3,000 annually, on utility costs.*

Don’t worry. We can put that money where our mouth is; we’ll even show you how it’s done. Our new Learning Centers make it easy for homeowners to get a better understanding of the advanced building techniques used in the homes we build. It’s not smoke and mirrors that make it happen, it’s certain types of light bulbs, window panes, insulation and thoughtfully planned technology that make it work, day after day. In these new centers, homebuyers can visit different information stations that explain the benefits of what each feature contributes to the home.

As you step inside our Learning Center, a large display in the center of the room greets you with the same familiarity to that of a shopping center map. In our version, we’ve visually torn down the walls of one of our homes and illustrated where each feature comes into play and how it will make your life more comfortable and save you money. From roof to floor, you get a real sense of what’s inside.

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From there, you are welcome to take a self guided tour from one station to the next and learn how Meritage builds homes the way they can and should be built.

For example, put our spray foam insulation to the test. Our insulation display showcases three insulation methods: cellulose, fiberglass and our spray foam. Hear the difference with the touch of a button, comparing one insulation type to the next. Spray foam insulation blocks sound as much as 50% better than the insulation used by many of our competitors, and creates a true barrier that eliminates moisture and stops air from leaking in and conditioned air from leaking out.

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Next, head over to our optional Remote Home Management System and learn how our partnership with Nexia Home Intelligence allows you to monitor, control and communicate with your home and its security features while on the go. Interact with the display and toggle with monitor views or watch a short video to see how it works.

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Perhaps our most exciting display is our new interactive HERS Score Rating System touch screen. Now energy savings are actually at your fingertips. Use your finger to move our slider up and down to see how having a home with a low HERS score equates to annual energy-cost savings.

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While we could go on, showing is much more fun than telling and as they say, actions speak louder than words. So, we invite you to explore the first Learning Center in our Velvendo community and see for yourself how Meritage is setting the standard for energy-efficient homes.

For more photos of our new Learning Center, see below.

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Our commitment to over 80,000 homeowners extends far beyond the home buying process. We are proud of the homes we build and strive to provide our homeowners with the help and necessary tools to continually care for their investment.

To reinforce our dedication to this commitment, Meritage Homes sends each homeowner a series of surveys to evaluate and review his or her experience with us. These surveys are conducted by Avid Ratings, a third-party company, which helps us collect and analyze results to evaluate our efforts. We look at 137 different categories ranging from construction and quality to sales and service for a more well-rounded assessment of our business to determine how we can continually evolve.

Customer Service Rankings for Divisions
Avid Ratings is a full-service customer engagement and loyalty management firm specializing in the home building industry. Now in their ninth year, the Avid Awards are the leading industry-sponsored award program recognizing the best builders in North America for their customer service.

Meritage Homes is honored to be recognized among the best for exceptional service in four different divisions over the past year. In the Southeast region, our Orlando division was awarded the 2012 Benchmark Award after receiving an index score of 272/300 points as rated by our homeowners. This ranks us among the top 25% of all builders in the U.S. with over 95% of our homeowners recommending us to family and friends.

Our Active Adult division received the highest ranking Avid index score (274/300) among all Western U.S. builders and was awarded the Avid Gold Award for Best Customer Experience in the Western U.S. We were also honored to receive two Benchmark Awards for our Las Vegas and Tucson divisions, recognizing top 25% customer experience for homebuyers nationwide.

Customer Service Rankings for Employees
In late November, Avid Rating announced their inaugural 2013 Avid Service Awards specifically calling attention to the employees who rank the best for customer satisfaction nationwide. For the first time, employees who scored among the top 5% in customer satisfaction were recognized from the thousands of employees rated on the Avid Ratings GoSurvey Program.  Employees are evaluated within the Sales, Construction and Walkthrough departments. The recipients of the 2013 Avid Service Awards were selected on the customer satisfaction scores directly tied to their performance on the Avid survey, and whether they had a representative sample of more than 12 completed surveys over a 12 month period. The results were based on surveys taken by homeowners who closed between July 2011 and June 2012.

We are proud to additionally recognize those Meritage Homes employees here:

Sales Representative Winners

• Craig Dunkelberger, Denver
• Rochelle Lord, Austin
• Frannie Metcalfe, Active Adult
• Pasquale Natale, Orlando
• Tatiana Souza, Orlando

Construction Representative Winners

• Chris Chronister, Denver
• Paul Gambill, Austin
• Steve Johnson, Orlando
• Prescott Norman, Active Adult
• Gintas Urbonavicius, Austin
• Paul Wilson, N. California

Walk-Through Service Winners

• Spencer Gordon, Austin
• Prescott Norman, Active Adult
• Gintas Urbonavicius, Austin
• Jessica Warren, Austin
• Paul Zetah, Active Adult

From coast to coast, Meritage Homes is committed to enriching lives by building beautiful, well-constructed homes and furthering the American dream. As our homeowners embark on the road to ownership, all of us at Meritage will draw upon our years of experience to help. Our commitment to our customers is to make this journey as enjoyable as possible. We appreciate your trust, encourage you to voice your questions and concerns, and we look forward to bringing you home.

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Most people continue to purchase homes that have been fundamentally unchanged in construction methodology for the last 40 years.  Since the industry was not perceived as ‘broke,’ there was not impetus to ‘fix’ it.  The underlying lack of change is a result of the unique way people buy homes.  Homebuyers are accustomed to having three fundamental categories to assess and choose the best home for them: optimum location, price and design.  The opportunity and challenge of Green homebuilding is in introducing a fourth decision point to enable a consumer to make an informed decision and buy a better home.

The challenge has been how to create a new possibility by leveraging more than the fundamental three variables.  The best opportunity is to provide better energy-efficiency, sustainable building practices, use innovative materials, and improved home performance.  This strategy has been coined ‘Green Building’ and represents a significant advancement in the functioning and quality of a home.  Through comprehensive building science programs like Energy Star, Indoor airPLUS, WaterSense and DOEs Challenge Home, comprehensive builder programs have been developed and validated to drive substantive improvements in a home’s energy-efficiency, indoor air quality and performance. Meritage can now offer a suite of better materials, efficient appliances, performance ratings and EPA certifications to provide a truly better quality of life for our homebuyers.  But in order for a consumer to realize the benefits of a better functioning home, we work diligently to convert our superior building science into a new fourth variable that is understandable and impactful in improving a buyer’s lifestyle.

Green building done right represents a credible strategy to provide buyers with drastic improvements in the fundamental values of a family: economics, health, and comfort.  Therefore, it is critical that a builder convert the materials and ratings of a good green building program into the benefits that clearly provides the ‘best’ value from the ‘good enough’ choices. While many buyers do not understand SEER, SHGC or HERS well enough to choose between potential homes, everyone wants to save money, be healthier and be more comfortable.  A good green building program provides the potential to provide the best savings, healthiest homes and most comfort.  Buying a home can be intimidating, so make try to make all of the processes from finding, researching, and buying a home simple.  Buying a home is expensive, so we make sure we credibly demonstrate the significant svings possible when you buy the right house.  Everyone is saying they are better, so we validate our claims through the EDA, DOE, and Third party inspections.

Green building can be a source of innovation that creates opportunity for a builder and their customer to get more.  The success of any program will be contingent on both creating the value, and assisting a buyer to appreciate it.  The reason green building is effective in home building today is because it enables a new way for people to make their buying decision.  Ultimately, the new EPA Energy Star for Homes slogan puts it the most succinctly: “Better is better.” And with that stated, green building can provide a credible improvement compared to other homes up the street.

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• First, Like our Facebook Page
  The more new “Likes” Meritage Homes adds on Facebook, the higher the prize money will grow. If we add 5,000 new “Likes” through August 31, our grand prize grows to $3,000!
• Share with Friend s and Family
  Tell your friends and family to “Like” Meritage Homes page on Facebook to really increase the prize money. As the days progress, you can check the status of the grand prize amount on our fan meter.
• Enter Once Daily
  For those truly ‘in it to win it,’ you can enter each day to increase your chances of winning. That’s one more reason to “Like” Meritage Homes.

Good luck and don’t forget to share the news! For official rules, please visit Meritage Homes on Facebook.

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NAHBGreen Project of the Year
Bruce Ploeser and his family own a home in our Verrado community in Buckeye, Arizona. It has been awarded the 2012 National Green Building Award. This award presented by The NAHBGreen was for Project of The Year—Single Family-Production. The Ploeser’s  Net Zero home is ENERGY STAR®, WaterSense, Indoor airPLUS and Build America certified. One notable feature of this home is its 5.6 kW Echo Solar System that not only provides electricity but also harnesses the heat generated from the sun. Harnessing this heat helps to heat water and cool the home as well. These advanced features enable this home to consume less energy than the typical U.S. home and have low to no utility bills each month. Read more about the Ploeser’s energy efficient home features here.

One Millionth RESNET Home
Developed by RESNET, the Home Energy Rating System (HERS) is the industry standard by which a home’s energy efficiency is measured. The lower the HERS index score, the more energy efficient a home. As a home becomes more energy efficient, it adds more value and becomes more comfortable. In May, RESNET certified its estimated one millionth home, a Meritage Home in Gilbert, Arizona. This HERS rating, (of 51 for standard or 34 with solar) indicated that this particular home would save the homeowner about $158 a month, or $1,890 a year, in utility expenses. Read the full HERS article here.

San Antonio’s First Solar Community
San Antonio now has its first solar community. The Magnolia model in our Providence community boasts a HERS index score of 33 and has integrated renewable energy. This means it produces both electricity and hot water for the home. It also showcases our latest advanced feature: remote control capabilities. Through a smart phone or tablet, the homeowner can check the thermostat, see who’s outside the home and even unlock the door. Watch the video walkthrough of the Magnolia Plan here.

Meritage Homes and Whirlpool Corporation Partnership
In May, we announced Whirlpool as the exclusive appliance provider to our wide-range of homes. The Whirlpool Corporation will provide Jenn-Air®, KitchenAid®, Maytag® and Whirlpool® appliances to all of our new communities. Meritage Homes will also be one of the first homebuilders in the country to outfit many of its homes with the Whirlpool Ice Collection. This collection is an entirely new kitchen suite of appliances that balances modern cues of metal against sparkling white and black surfaces. This suite is also available in stainless steel.   Whirlpool Corporation’s dedication to their products’ potential impact on the environment is demonstrated not only through product design and manufacture, but also through every aspect of the organization. This commitment is embodied in Whirlpool Corporation’s participation in the voluntary ENERGY STAR programs in the United States and Canada, the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Green Power Partnership and their Global Greenhouse Gas reduction pledge, a goal that will be realized in part through the production and sale of resource efficient appliances.  Whirlpool Corporation manufactures and markets more than 300 ENERGY STAR®-qualified major appliances in the United States, plus numerous ENERGY STAR®-qualified appliances in Canada, PROCEL appliances in Brazil and Class-A appliances in Europe. Read our Whirlpool partnership announcement here.

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Available as an option in every home we build, Meritage will work with a 3rd party company authorized by the EPA to inspect and certify any home we build to receive an Indoor airPLUS label. We are the first of the top 10 publically traded homebuilders in the U.S. to partner with the EPA’s voluntary Indoor airPLUS program. Homes with Indoor airPLUS labels are designed for improved indoor air quality (IAQ) compared to homes built to minimum code. Indoor airPLUS qualified homes are built to address concerns such as:

• Moisture control
• Radon control
• Pest management
• Heating, ventilating and air conditioning
• Combustion venting
• Building with materials containing reduced chemical content

To earn the Indoor airPLUS label, a home must first be ENERGY STAR® certified. Since Q4 2009, 100% of Meritage homes have been built to meet or surpass ENERGY STAR certified levels. Next, the builder must add indoor air improvements into the design or construction process of the home. Protecting a Meritage home from the inside out means eliminating drafts with appropriate seals and insulation and properly venting our ENERGY STAR certified appliances. To improve indoor air humidity, we also use properly designed HVACs (minimum SEER 14) with high efficiency filters to add comfort to our homes. These energy-efficient systems also help homeowners reduce their monthly utility bill costs. Our fresh-air intakes help circulate fresh air into a home and our use of low VOC interior wall and trim finishes means homeowners can breathe easier. VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, are emissions found in carpets, adhesives and paints that can exacerbate allergies and Asthma. These emissions are released into your home, greatly reducing air quality. Our commitment to use low to no VOC products when possible helps to create a healthier indoor air environment.

We work with a Home Energy Rater to ensure our homes are designed and built to meet Indoor airPLUS construction specifications. Then, the homes are inspected and verified by that Home Energy Rater before receiving an Indoor airPLUS label.

We take these steps so our homeowners can breathe easier and live better; not only when you open the utility bill but also in your everyday quality of life.

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In 2009, Meritage Homes made a commitment to take the lead in energy efficient building practices. There are many reasons for this: government mandates, market differentiation and consumer demand for homes that not only look beautiful but also save you money.

Since Q4 2009, we’ve built 100% of our homes at or above ENERGY STAR®-certified levels. Our ENERGY STAR qualified homes offer the features and quality people desire but with much lower utility bills and greater benefits for their lifestyle. To earn the ENERGY STAR label a home must adhere to strict guidelines for energy efficiency set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As a result, these homes are 20-30% more efficient than standard homes. Meritage surpasses this level of performance by building every one of our homes with these standard energy efficient features.

In August 2011, we set out to build the first production net-zero home in the country. Sure, there were other net-zero homes in the country, but most of them were one-off designs, prohibitively expensive or builder showcase homes that were never meant to be sold or lived in.

We built a real net-zero home for Bruce Ploeser and his family, a beautiful 3,391-square-foot home in a community called Verrado , located in Buckeye, Arizona. The Ploeser’s home looks like most homes on their street except on sunny Arizona days when the electric meter starts spinning backward because the home is generating more power than it uses.

We call our net-zero homes a “Residential Revolution”—because they represent a true net-zero home option that many of our customers can take advantage of. Not only was this the first production net-zero home in the nation, it was also the first to be awarded the three highest certifications from the EPA.

So what does it mean to be triple-certified? Beyond energy-efficiency, we incorporated indoor air quality (IAQ) measures such as MERV-8 air filters and low VOC interior products. Water-efficient fixtures and products, reducing water consumption to meet stringent EPA WaterSense requirements inside and out.

Fast-forward to February 2012. With our entry into Raleigh, NC came another opportunity for us to prove our innovative, energy efficient design strategy would work in all our markets, and not just the sunny desert southwest. The Gibbons model home in our Belmont community near Cary, North Carolina earned us our second triple-certification from the EPA. This 3,371-square-foot two story home features 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, a sophisticated water management system and all those standard energy-efficient features that can save homeowners up to 80% on their home energy use.

We are very proud to announce that one of our new San Antonio model homes, in our Providence community , has also received triple certification from the EPA making it the first triple-certified home in Texas.

These three homes were the first to receive all three EPA certifications for indoor air health, water resource conservation, and energy efficiency. These certifications are available in any Meritage home nationally, so you can score a triple of your own. Beautiful home, save money, live better!

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History has shown that people do not always choose what is best for them, but what they know and understand. The higher the stakes, the more conservative we are in our choices. The challenge of getting each of us to choose to adopt a better behavior or product is twofold. The first challenge is that different is often perceived as risky, because we do not understand it as well as our current choice. The second is that even if we understand we will get an improvement from a new choice, we have to invest effort in changing. Let’s just say it: we can often be too lazy to do better for ourselves.

The challenge is apparent today as Meritage and other members of building industry have adopted superior building specifications to improve the quality and performance of homes. First, in building energy efficient homes the majority of the significant improvements in home building cannot be readily seen. In fact, if we do our jobs well, it is the last thing the buyer of a new Meritage Home thinks about. We want our homeowners to be impacted by how they live in the home, how they can better entertain their guests, and how they can relax after a long work week. The lower the utility bills, the clearer air, and quieter home, just kind of happen. Very few of us take note how we DON’T hear the neighbor’s kids new garage band.

Second, when buying a home, we clearly have a few things to think of to get the best home: location, floor plan, amenities, and price. The complexities of understanding the value between a home with or without low E windows or what the heck a HERS is can feel like an unnecessary burden. Most of us are clear that granite counters are great, but are not aware that significantly lower utility bills can add up to over $100,000 in savings over a 30 year mortgage. If we knew that, we could buy a lot more granite.

And that is the challenge for us all – to remember to consider the things we can’t see when choosing things we buy: How well is it built? How much will it cost me to operate? How good is it for my family? How good is it for the earth? It is work to ask the questions. It may take 6 or even 7 minutes. When the answers allow each of us to choose products and action that make every day better and put money in our pockets, it seems like a reasonable investment of our time.

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Congress raised the FHA’s loan limits a couple months back, which is really good news for home buyers. It makes the easier credit- and income-qualifying standards of the FHA program available to the majority of new home buyers. The standards for qualifying for an FHA loan are far more relaxed than its Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac counterparts – which opens the program up to qualified homebuyers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the lower 3.5 percent down payment.

Since that loan limit covers most of the new home prices in the market today, Congress’s act creates a powerful mechanism that’s poised to significantly stimulate the economy and help housing recover — and, in turn, help the overall economy recover. The Administration is also joining in the chorus on getting the housing market moving — and along with Congress and the Federal Reserve, they are working on multiple programs that will help stimulate residential real estate. The FHA loan limits are a good example of how the government can add some additional momentum to an improving housing market.

With these higher loan limits set to last through 2012 and interest rates at the lowest point on record, we now have a pretty favorable environment for home buyers through at least the next part of the cycle, and probably much longer.

It’s truly a great time to buy a brand-new home with a small down payment. Now is the time to take advantage of historically low interest rates and the low monthly payments that come with them.

The limit’s been raised. Are you in?

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