Energy-efficient mortgages are the vehicle for a new lending program that promises to increase the purchasing power of home buyers by some 17.5 percent. Under the Freedom Seal of Approval, new or remodeled houses which meet the program's "advanced criteria" for structural soundness and energy efficiency will qualify for property insurance discounts and cost significantly less to operate.

They also will be eligible for 50-basis-point discounts on mortgages from Advantage Capital Funding of Houston.

On a $300,000 house that meet the program's standards, a buyer could save $50 a month on his home owner's insurance, trim $150 a month from his utility bills and cut $93 off his mortgage payment, for a total saving of $293.

That's enough to boost the purchaser's buying power by $52,500, meaning he could actually afford to buy a house worth $350,000 or retrofit an existing $300,000 house with $50,000 worth of improvements, according to David Goswick, a Houston advertising executive and co-founder of the Freedom Seal of Approval Program.

The program is being billed as "the first total home certification program in America" and has the blessing of the Environmental Protection Agency and Institute for Business and Home Safety, an insurance industry supported group that seeks to make houses more resistant to earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Under the program, which was announced at the National Association of Real Estate Editors annual meeting in San Diego earlier this month, houses are inspected one at a time by independent third-party examiners trained to determine their efficiency as well as their ability to stand up to strong winds, fires, freezes and even temblors.

The insurance industry's goal under Freedom Seal is to keep hazards from becoming disasters, said Charles Vance, manager of the IBHS's two-year-old Fortified Homes program.

"The public has an under-rated willingness to pay for safety, not only for themselves but also for their homes," the insurance industry executive said. Goswick told the real estate writers that he expects to enroll some 2 million houses in the program and called on all builders to join.

"Homes that are alike may not perform alike and do not necessarily cost the same to operate," he said. "Even homes built by the same builder don't always perform equally. Therefore the new rating system directly impacts value."

Lucy Smith, a real estate broker who owns several Re/Max-affiliated offices in Texas, spoke highly of Freedom Seal.

"The beauty of the program is that it is appealing to people on both sides of the closing table," she said. "The higher standards will not only assist home buyers and its occupants for a long time, but also will be attractive to mortgages lenders, insurers, utilities providers and the like."

Goswick believes that even though houses that are better built and operate more efficiently do not cost more to own, they should be worth more. Thus, he said, the program's new measuring stick, called the "total cost of ownership," will give buyers a better shopping tool than the more traditional price-per-square-foot method.

"Anyone who does not look into the Freedom Seal program prior to purchasing or selling a home is leaving money on the table," the product development specialist said. "It can either reward them or haunt them as long as they own their home."

Sam Rashkin, national director of the EPA's Energy Star program, which serves as the energy efficiency component on the program, said builders and their buyers should be rewarded for erecting and purchasing high-performance houses.

"Price does not equal cost," he said, noting that builders can put up units that meet or exceed the program's requirements for as little as $500-$600.