Do Our Tax Dollars Really Pay For Real Estate Ad Police?

The Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability just notified me my real estate listing (I'm selling) doesn't include a "home energy score," and that I'll be fined if I don't shape up. Do our tax dollars really pay for real estate ad police? —Jacob L.

I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of the little guy confronting the bone-grinding wheels of bureaucracy, Jacob, but surely you recognize that tax-dollar-based indignation is the last refuge of the curmudgeon. (The fact that your reply to BPS, which you thoughtfully attached, begins "Dear Big Brother" does little to mitigate this impression.)

If being a curmudgeon is a crime, we'll hang side by side, but let's be real: the Home Energy Score requirement is not exactly the kind of cruel government oppression that might feature as a plot point in the next Hunger Games movie.

The HES is an evaluation of your home's ability to be energy efficient, independent of the occupants' habits. Like the MPG rating of a car, the actual energy use depends on the user's habits ("your mileage may vary"), but the number is supposed to give you a consistent basis for comparison.

An accredited HES inspector feeds about 70 different parameters into a computer model that then spits out a number from 10 (the real estate equivalent of a 2020 Prius) to 1 (a 1970 Dodge Challenger with carburetor problems).

The going rate for this service is in the neighborhood of $200, but those earning less than 60 percent of median household income can get it for free. Either way, if you're selling a house in Portland that you've lived in for long enough to get grumpy, you're probably about to turn a profit that will make $200 seem like chump change.

The rule went into effect Jan. 1, 2018, but until recently, BPS's enforcement efforts were mostly education and outreach. This summer, however, officials finally started threatening violators with a $500 fine.

The bureau says the HES program has "roughly one" full-time employee (Schrödinger's bureaucrat?), who spends around 15 percent of his or her time on enforcement, with a goal of checking at least 10 percent of the listings. So yes, there is a paid employee policing the ads, though not very often or for very long.