Rooftop Solar Increases a Home’s Selling Price Across Multiple Markets
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released a report showing that homes with solar panels typically sell for $15,000 greater than those without solar panels installed. The study analyzed data collected from over 22,000 homes between 2002 and 2013 to measure the effect that solar panels have on a home’s market selling price. The report’s findings come as a boon not only to homeowners with solar panels, but also to the real estate industry, which has struggled to place a price on rooftop solar in the past.
Solar panels must operate for a number of years before they produce enough benefit to outweigh their initial cost. This sort of multi-year investment isn’t a big deal for conventional utilities, which have the capital and continuity to finance solar farms, gas power plants, and other forms of electricity generation. However, for an ordinary family looking to invest in rooftop solar panels, there is added risk associated with the fact that the panels might not pay off before the family moves out of their home—at which point any electricity cost savings are passed onto the next homeowner (assuming the solar panels stay with the home).
Thus, to effectively finance and utilize rooftop solar panels, homeowners need information not only about the value of produced solar energy, but also about how rooftop solar panels will affect the selling price of their home in the future. This sort of math is familiar to many homeowners, who usually justify the cost of home improvements like hardwood floors, new fixtures, or other upgrades based on the premium they’ll command when the home is eventually put on the market.
To reveal the effect solar panels have on a home’s selling price, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory analyzed data collected from 3,951 solar-equipped homes and 18,871 comparable homes without solar panels, located in the states of California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania. The data span the years 2002 through 2013, encapsulating the pre-2009 housing bubble, subsequent crash, and ongoing recovery.
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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2015/01/23/rooftop-solar-increases-a-homes-selling-price-across-multiple-markets/
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