How about a tax incentive, to fix up your older home? It's as proposal from state Representative Gary Sherman: offer a three year deferral on assessment of improvements for things like energy efficiency upgrades to homes. Sherman notes most such improvements have a three year payback. Sherman doesn't want to mandate the three year deferral, but says communities that offered it might end up collecting more tax revenues over the long term. Sherman recently reintroduced the bill and is waiting for a hearing in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee.