you are right about incentives being misaligned.

In Europe, when you buy / sell a home, you get an energy report of how much you'll pay for utilities, so people are starting to take energy costs into account.

This is becoming true in the US, with New York, Austin, DC, and Seattle passing building benchmarking laws in the past year. Many are focused on larger buildings, but it's a good beginning.

This is especially important for larger buildings, esp. low-income housing, where owners pay for much of the energy, and thus are incentivized to be more efficient.