Posted Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Solar Power Can Increase Home Value

A new research just recently came out by the US Department of Energy that indicates a lot of home buyers tend to be willing to pay more for their homes that already have solar panels on their rooftops. This is a finding that could just strengthen cases for factoring the value of this type of power into a home appraisal.

Conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The research was done by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory located in California, and they examined the sales data from nearly 23,000 homes in eight different states from the years 2002 through 2013. Around 4,000 of the 23,000 homes studied had solar energy systems, all of them were owned and not financed through leasing with a local solar company.

The researchers discovered that the buyers of homes were more than willing to pay an extra $15,000 for a home that had an average in size solar system when compared to a home that was similar and didn’t have this type of energy.

This particular study included a lot more solar property sales than any other similar research which makes this study quite robust in comparison.

Importance of Research

This particular research is important for not only the buyer but for the lender as well and the appraisers can say they now have proof there is some extra value to these systems. With the cost of solar power systems dropping in cost over the past decade, there are more homeowners who are now installing these types of energy systems. As of the middle of 2014, there were over a half-million homes that had installed solar systems to their homes.

Trying to Catch Up

Now it seems that lenders, real estate agents, and appraisers are all trying to catch up with this technology along with many other new energy-saving features being included in new homes. They are starting to learn how to calculate the effect on home values in all types of home markets.

The government-sponsored Fannie Mae has even acknowledged the increasing growth of solar power in homes. They issued a guideline that points out if a home has this type of system that is owned, appraisers should analyze the installed system and the market it’s in and see if it adds real value. Their guideline provides very important verbiage to give people some leverage with the lenders. These guidelines, however, state that appraisers can’t add value to a home if the solar system is a leased one.

High Electric Costs in New York

In some areas, like Long Island, for example, have such high electric costs that solar is starting to become a very attractive market. Nearly 40 percent of all solar systems found in New York have been installed on Long Island. Buyers in this area are more willing to pay more for a home that already has this type of energy installed.

If you are considering installing a solar system to your home and want to learn more about how it can increase the value of your home contact us today and we will answer all of your questions.