Rooftop solar boosts home resale value: study | ConEdison Solutions

SFLRS CARS SFRS NYRS No Manhattan RN Rockaway RN East End RN Canarsie RN Staten Island RN

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solar, real estate

> http://blog.conedsolutions.com/2015/02/rooftop-solar-boosts-home-resale-value-study/ <http://blog.conedsolutions.com/2015/02/rooftop-solar-boosts-home-resale-value-study/>
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> Rooftop solar boosts home resale value: study
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> <http://blog.conedsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/solarfamily_iStock_000048211938_Small1.jpg>Considering adding solar panels to your roof but worried about your home’s resale value? Rest easy, according to a new study.
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> The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory <http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-4476e.pdf> says that buyers are willing to pay more for a home with a rooftop solar array. This is good news to Realtors and appraisers, who traditionally have counseled owners about the pitfalls of solar.
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> As the number of solar homes grows thanks to federal tax subsidies that are pushing the installation price down, the argument over inheriting someone else’s solar system will be heard again and again by industry professionals.
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> By the end of last year, more than 500,000 homes had photovoltaic (PV) installations. “As PV systems become more and more common on U.S. homes, it will be increasingly important to value them accurately, using a variety of methods. Our findings should provide greater confidence that PV adds a quantifiable premium to a wide variety of homes,” said co-author Sandra Adomatis, an appraiser who helped develop the Appraisal Institute’s Green Addendum <http://www.appraisalinstitute.org/education/education-resources/green-building-resources/>, which assists appraisers in analyzing green features and properties.
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> What makes this study notable is that the researchers more than doubled the number of PV home sales which they analyzed, examining several states and looking at data before, during, and after the recent housing boom/bust.
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> The researchers discovered a “PV premium,” which adds about $4 per watt, or roughly $15,000, to the value of a home based on an average-sized 3.6 kW system. The premium did decrease as the system aged. The PV premium is true across states, home types, and housing and solar markets. The research was led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories, universities, and appraisers. Supported by funding from the DOE’s SunShot Initiative <http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/sunshot-initiative>, data was based on the sale of 22,822 homes from 2002 to 2013. Of those sales, 3,951 sales were in eight states that had solar sales. The data also focused on systems that were owned, not leased, by the homeowner.
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> Another study will look at the impact of leased PV systems on home resale prices, which should give a much broader and clearer picture of the future of residential solar in the real estate market.