Thank you. I'm happy to answer this question.
Indeed, there's a big conflict between the price and the benefits that our eco-homes are bringing to the buyers. I believe that while these eco-features are costly, we have been able to do the project with an economy of scale so that when we talk to the geothermal guys or the solar panel vendors, we try to convince them that we are building not one house at a time but a whole subdivision so that we can get a bulk discount for all the infrastructure.
On the question about attainability, knowing that the prices are higher and that people may not be able to even put down the down payment, we have also included an additional dwelling unit in the design of the property. In Windsor and Essex, we have a very popular design type called the “raised ranch”. Basically, it's a bungalow with the basement not completely underground but halfway above grade, so we have designed an ADU, an additional dwelling unit. It's basically for rental purposes so that the owner, instead of having just one home for themselves, has an additional dwelling unit that can now be rented to people in the area or their family members so that the rental income can subsidize the mortgage payment every month.
In addition, the mortgage lenders will take into consideration the fact that they will have substantial savings on their hydro bills. Everything adds up to help them get a loan more easily than would be the case for the ordinary houses a lot of people are buying right now.