In a conference call yesterday supporters of the PACE* financing program, which is being effectively blocked by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, urged us to contact our representatives and to fight the Federal Regulators rulings on accepting mortgages on homes with PACE liens.
*Property accessed clean energy bond financing where homeowners borrow and have a lien attached to their home–problematically to FNMA, ahead of the first mortgage on the home.
See the PACEnow website (section 2) for the PACE federal legislation toolkit, if you’d like to contact your representatives to. Congress is in session through the first week of August, so the timing is now.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s lawsuit, filed yesterday, shows the issue for what it is: a States-rights or local-government-rights issue versus Federal regulators, even though it’s being positioned as a fight related to the environment.
As a consultant focused to energy efficiency and renewable energy companies, I feel sacrilegious wondering out loud if the PACE system really was going to be a driver of residential energy retrofits. For one thing interest rates offered through these bonds haven’t been nor were they likely to ever be all that good. It is a nice benefit that the loans are attached the the home and are not the personal liability of the home owner, so that if a home is sold, the new (and benefiting) home owner continues to pay the loan. But there were other problems too. The contracting firms conducting the energy retrofits and installing photovoltaic solar systems need to front the money and get paid upon completion. (At least that was the case in the SF First program’s presentation I attended several months ago.)
It’s too bad the PACE programs are fighting for their life instead of being able to focus on improving the programs.
But, here is a great opportunity for community banks: Offer competitive financing for energy efficiency home improvements. Software exists that can model the quick payback due to utility bill savings due to residential energy efficiency retrofits. And, it looks like the governments won’t be able to compete for the business.
P.S. (on 7/16) Vote Solar sent out an email this morning looking for PACE support with “Return of the Jedi: PACE fights back”. 
