Research continues to show that while homebuyers prefer environmentally friendly houses, they don't want to pay extra for the features that turn the typical home into an efficient one.

One option, the so-called energy efficient mortgage, has failed miserably at allowing buyers to finance the cost of energy-related improvements. Although the loans have been on the books for decades, few lenders offer them because they are just too cumbersome to originate.

Thus, buyers of today's high-performance houses have had to either come up with thousands of dollars in cash to pay for the energy extras they crave -- geothermal heat pumps, perhaps, or triple low-emissive windows -- or pass on them.

In short, they've been punished rather than rewarded for wanting to go green.

But now a Salt Lake City-based lender believes it has finally cracked the code when it comes to lending on energy-efficient houses.

The SecurityNational Mortgage Company, which has 77 branches across the country, has come up with a method for recognizing the value of energy improvements such as solar panels and rainwater runoff collection systems. It is positioning itself as the nation's premiere green lender.

In partnership with Green Energy Money (GEM) of Austin, Texas, SecurityNational is set to launch a massive high-performance pilot program with a goal of funding 10,000 energy-efficient homes by the end of next year. The partners are currently seeking builders in California, Illinois, Arizona, Colorado and Maryland to participate in the effort.

The lender has funded some $20 million in sustainable construction since the last part of 2013, and has $200 million more in the pipeline, says Teresa Lopez, a 25-year mortgage business veteran who spearheads SecurityNational's green lending program.

"We're not interested in doing one deal here and there," says Lopez. "We want to prove the marketability of our process and get all the systems and standards in place so we can go national. Our belief is that there is a lot of pent-up demand."

Lopez says she has spent the last 15 years trying to figure out how buyers can show how the present and future value of what they will save every month in energy costs justifies the higher price they have to pay at closing.

Over that time, Lopez has made herself into a recognized authority in the often gray area of green financing. She has developed new financial mechanisms, loan products and valuation methods designed to meet the growing need for financing sustainable upgrades.

The "key to the kingdom," as she calls it, is in the appraised value. Even today, when more and more builders are able to produce houses that cost little or nothing to operate -- and sometimes generate excess energy that can be sold back to the utility -- appraisers have been slow to identify the value that energy improvements add to a property's overall worth, now and in the future.

Appraisals have always been "the biggest roadblock," say Lopez and others in the green building movement. But GEM, a company Lopez built as part of her quest to find the Holy Grail of green financing, facilitates the process with an appraisal that recognizes and quantifies the value of features such as solar heating and water, geothermal heat, rainwater harvesting, energy-efficient building materials and electric vehicle stations.

According to Lopez, GEM's proprietary green appraisal rating system standardizes the connection between the popular Home Energy Rating System (known as the HERS index) and 18 energy-rating systems and building codes. The result captures the monetized value that lenders require to back high-performance construction -- or even remodels.

In layman's terms, Lopez says that "GEM has developed a method for green appraisals that support the valuation process. Our process facilitates a green appraisal that maximizes the value of your investment. It makes it possible for appraisers to fully recognize the lower maintenance costs and reduced operating expenses of an energy-efficient home."

Under the GEM system, builders will be able to submit measures and costs for green upgrades, absorb the capital outlays necessary to purchase and install the upgrades and then get their money back in higher prices that can be justified by a green appraisal.

For their part, appraisers will receive consistent, certified building audits that include the relationship of the upgrades to utility reduction, as well as building performance data and predicted energy costs. And homebuyers will find a more streamlined loan process.

"We hope our methodology will be quickly adopted and standardized nationally," says Lopez. "Many appraisers just don't know how to quantify or analyze high-performance building."

Only time will tell whether GEM will achieve critical mass. The goal of 10,000 houses seems to be a long shot. But the company is busy training appraisers and developing an accredited continuing education curriculum for the profession.

Until change works its way through the system, here's what you can do now to get an appraiser to recognize the value of your energy improvements:

-- Data. Give the appraiser the supporting information he needs -- cost and estimated energy savings -- to justify a higher appraisal. List the energy improvements by make and model number, and if possible, provide a before-and-after scenario of projected savings for a 12-month period.

-- Rating. Obtain a HERS rating for your home. There are other acceptable ratings systems -- LEED, for example -- but HERS is the nationally recognized method for inspecting and calculating a home's energy performance.

-- Credentials. Be sure the appraiser has the skills and experience to judge green construction. If the appraiser is not green-educated, says Lopez, you have the right to ask for another.

-- Builder. Pick a builder who is trained and certified in high-performance building.

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet. But would the Highlands of Olney sell as well if it were peddled as Barry's Neglect? Or Shepherd's Misfortune?

Probably not. And therein lies the reason most builders think naming their subdivisions ranks up there in importance with high-quality construction. They also find the chore to be a traumatic event that one builder once compared to "trying to name your firstborn."

Now there's a bit of science that shows just how much a couple of key words can add to the typical developer's bottom line. Not just any two words like "valley" or "mews," but the old standbys "country" and "country club."

According to a study by two researchers at the University of Georgia, homebuyers pay an average of 4.2 percent more when the development has the word "country" in the name. And if it has the term "country club" as part of its name, buyers will pay 5.2 percent on top of that.

That's a total of almost 10 percent more that people are willing to pay for the prestige associated with the term "country club."

A joke? Hardly. The study, the results of which were published in the Journal of Real Estate Research, is a serious investigation of sales in the Baton Rouge, La., area over 15 years. It carefully controlled for such variables as location, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and days on the market, among others.

"This is the first study to find through empirical research that buyers are willing to pay more for certain property names, with all other attributes of a house being equal," the paper said. "In fact, buyers of more expensive houses may be willing to pay more for a name that conveys prestige than they are willing to pay for a good school for their children."

No wonder, then, that the naming process is often a psychodrama, with builders and their marketing teams becoming more hung up over what they will call their communities than they are over the copy for a $10,000, full-page ad in the local newspaper.

But there is no tried-and-true naming method. The Fifield Cos. took an interesting approach in naming K2, its new 34-story apartment tower in downtown Chicago. K2, in Asia, is one of the tallest mountains on Earth. The Chicago building, while certainly not the tallest in the city, will have "the highest level of amenities, architecture and finishes," the developer says.

K2 is also one of the most difficult peaks in the world to climb -- it has the second-highest fatality rate -- and the building was one of the most challenging financing deals the developer had ever put together. It took a consortium of five commercial banks to fund the project.

Less imaginative builders resort to the old standards -- station, park, commons, woods, village, farms, hunt, square and gardens. Some look to history for a name, while others use location or a characteristic of the property. A few pick a name that immortalizes themselves or their loved ones.

Reston, one of the country's original "new towns" in Virginia, takes its name from the initials of its founder, Robert E. Simon, as in "RES-town." The Irene, an apartment building in Chevy Chase, Md., was built by Abe Pollin, who went on to own Washington's professional basketball and hockey teams. Pollin named the building after his bride. The nearby Elizabeth also was named for its builder's wife. Glad he didn't use the more familiar form of her name, though. Somehow, "I live at the Betsy" doesn't sound nearly as chic.

Then there are the guys who -- no kidding -- have named one project after their wives and the next after their girlfriends.

Simplicity often rules the naming process. But sometimes the simplest name doesn't work. For example, a place that was originally called Crimson Oaks had to change its name to Crimson Oak when it was discovered there was only a single oak on the property. Hey, the tract wasn't exactly wild with foliage in the first place. But Orchard Pond never did have a pond.

Speaking of change, one builder changed the name of his northern Virginia project several times while his marketing materials were at the printer. It went from Chip 'N Dale to Valley View Estates to Heritage Valley.

Name changes sometimes do wonders for a project. While named Andrews Manor, a town-house community near Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland was a slow seller. But as Canterbury Court, which it later became, it really took off. The builder's ad agency swore the name was the only change.

Other times, though, nothing works. Levitt and Sons was wildly successful with its Levittowns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but a project in Maryland had four names in five years. According to the company, each name corresponded with a different section of the project, but truth be told, the company couldn't sell its upscale houses at that location and kept changing the name to boost sales.

Of course, a community's name should meet certain criteria. One is that it should be easy to pronounce, which is where a New England-bred developer who prided himself on building authentic colonial houses went wrong. For one of his projects he picked the name Falmouth, which is pronounced "fall muth" in Massachusetts. But locally, the community became known as "foul mouth."

The name of a community also should be able to stand the test of time by remaining descriptive as the place ages and matures. Thousand Oaks failed that test early on. There may have been 1,000 oaks at the site before the builder broke ground. But after he completed the project, the number of trees left standing -- not just oaks, but trees -- could be counted on one hand.

Your home is on the market. You found buyers, a nice young couple just starting out, and they're sold on the home. But wait, there's one more person you have to sell: the appraiser.

You can no longer try to influence the professional who's responsible for placing a value on the house -- a value that your lender must feel comfortable with if, for some reason, you don't pay back your loan and the bank has to foreclose.

No, the days of MAI -- which actually stands for Member of the Appraisal Institute but was euphemistically known in the trade as "Made as Instructed" -- are long gone. But there is still plenty you can do to improve the chance that you will obtain the value you are looking for.

According to builders and realty agents, many a deal has been scuttled when lenders assigned appraisers who lived hundreds of miles away or were not familiar with the area. So after the appraiser calls to set up an appointment, check his or her bona fides.

"The best way for owners to combat potential problems is to ensure the appraiser is qualified and competent," says Ken Wilson, president of the Appraisal Institute, a trade association based in Chicago. "Consumers have every right to demand the use of someone with field experience in their market and knowledge to handle the assignment properly."

Ask your lender about the appraiser's professional designations. How long has he practiced? What level of experience does she have with your market and your type of property? Is he familiar with the neighborhood?

Of course, you spruced up the house when you put it on the market. You painted, perhaps, and you certainly fixed that broken window in the master bath and stopped the leak in the hall water closet. And you put away all that clutter in the kitchen.

Now make sure the house is just as dandy when the appraiser finally arrives. Tidy up. Get the dishes out of the sink and into the dishwasher. Clean off the counters. Pick up the dirty clothes from the bathroom floor. Change the furnace filters.

Also, send the kids off to the neighbors' or out to the movies, and lock up your animals.

None of this will add or subtract from the valuation. But human nature being what it is, says John Brenan, director of appraisal issues at the Appraisal Foundation, it will convey the notion that the house is well-maintained. The Appraisal Foundation was created by Congress to set appraisal standards and appraiser qualifications.

While you cannot try to directly influence the appraiser -- offering a free dinner at his favorite restaurant, maybe, or a little cash under the table -- you can speak with him. It's a myth that you can't.

"Conversation is not only allowed, but it is vital," says Brenan. "The appraiser needs to be able to discuss pertinent items about the house or contract."

When the appraiser arrives, present him with a list of everything in and about the house that you believe adds value -- a new refrigerator, perhaps, or an addition above the garage. You are not trying to influence the deal, per se. Rather, you are "simply documenting," says Brenan. "You are not saying you need an extra $5,000 because you put on a new roof last year. You're just saying that you put on a new roof."

Your list should include a detailed description of any improvements or replacements, the dates they were made, who did the work (backed up by invoices to show they were done by a professional as opposed to a weekend do-it-yourselfer), a brochure to show the quality of the materials and building permits.

Also list any ways your house differs from others on your block: different finishes used, your better view, your larger lot size. "The list goes on and on," says Brenan. "You can't provide enough information about the house, the neighborhood, the schools. It will help give the appraiser a better understanding about the market."

Also give the appraiser a list of comparables, or "comps," which are similar properties in your neighborhood that sold recently. The appraiser may well already have the exact same houses, so at the worst, your list may be redundant. But then again, he may have only one or two.

Either way, says Brenan, "as long as you don't make any demands, a good, competent appraiser should appreciate" the help.

Some backwards appraisers still balk at accepting such information. One recently told Jill Sackler, an agent with Charles Rutenberg Realty in Merrick, N.Y., that he was no longer allowed to do so. But Barbara-Jo Roberts Berberi, a Ruterberg agent in Crystal Beach, Fla., had the opposite experience recently.

The appraiser "was thrilled" with the list of comps Berberi provided, she said on the ActiveRain real estate chat room.

Berberi's list included an explanation of how it was created, a map and drive-by photos of the other houses. Her list was of houses built after 1990 (the subject house was built in 2002) that had between 1,800 and 2,890 square feet (subject was 2,360).

She also highlighted the per-square-foot sold price for each comp so the appraiser could see at a glance that the contract price for the subject house was just under the lowest price of houses that sold in the previous six months.

It took some effort on her part, Berberi said, but "it saved him some work and made both our lives easier."