Getting your player ready...
If you’re shopping homes this summer, you have strong feelings about where you want to live, and how much you’re willing to pay to be there. But you may have no idea how much a particular model can save you in energy costs, or what you should spend for the best performer – something Meritage Homes will clear up today at any of 13 neighborhoods between Castle Rock and Fort Collins.
At any Meritage community, you’ll find at least one home ready for move-in, and every home will have a HERS energy score at around 60 – so low that it’s designed to perform more than 50 percent better energy-wise than an average new home built to code. If you’re comparing to older homes (average HERS scores for those are around 130) the savings are even more dramatic. Buy that home now, and Meritage will take $15,000 off the price. The offer applies to any home that’ll be ready for move-in this summer – such as a 3-bedroom Salida waiting now at The Preserve in Brighton, an attractive enclave with extra-wide sites, around a mature park that has views west to the mountains. That Salida (you can also tour it as a furnished model) has 2,246 square feet plus basement and 3-car tandem garage; and Meritage has upgrade the cabinetry, installed granite counters and expanded the hardwood flooring. It’s ready to move into at $323,218 – but you can take $15,000 off if you buy now. Meanwhile, the HERS rating on the Salida (61) is set up to save the buyer around $85 a month in energy costs over a typical new home – over a thousand dollars a year; enough to take a serious bite out of a kid’s college tuition over a lifetime of home ownership. If you want, Meritage can add a solar system and make the savings much higher still. At the Preserve or at any other Meritage neighborhood, you’ll see sharp looking architecture that appeals to the eye and offers families great flexibility in how they choose to use space. What’s more difficult to see is how Meritage builds its homes to create those savings while keeping its construction costs right in line with other builders. So you’ll find an ‘energy information center’ built into many Meritage model centers that let you see the spray-foam insulation and the window design, and let you experience how well those work. You’ll find one at Water Valley in Windsor, east of Loveland from I-25 on Crossroads Boulevard to New Liberty Road; at Rocking Horse, a countrified neighborhood between south Aurora and Parker served by Douglas County Schools, east of E470 on Gartrell Road; and at Silver Creek in Lafayette, north of Baseline Road on Crossing Drive to Cabrini. The Preserve in Brighton is north of 160th on Telluride. All 13 Meritage communities have at least one home for quick delivery with the $15,000 discount; check MeritageHomes.com for exact directions. WHERE: $15,000 off price of any home ready for quick delivery by Meritage Homes, available in 13 Front Range communities including in Arvada, Erie, Castle Rock, Parker, Aurora, Lafayette, Brighton, Longmont, Thornton, Fort Collins, Windsor and Timnath. Energy Learning Centers in most communities; Home Energy Rating System scores average below 60 PRICE: From $250s to $600s
