As promised, today we are going to dive into yet another great reason to switch to solar energy! If you have been following our recent blog post, thank you, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them. If you are just reading for the first time feel free to check out our other post’s, and if you want to stay up to date like us on Facebook to see when new post are added!
So diving in I am excited to go over today’s reason to switch to solar energy. Working in the industry, a question I have heard asked fairly often is “what happens if a year or two down the road I decide to sell my house?” What a valid question that is, and there are a lot of factors to consider in that. So today I hope to give an good overview of the answer to this question.
Consider that Solar, as with most home improvement, is and investment in your home.
Almost any renovations or home improvement adds value to a home. Think of a new porch addition, or a kitchen remodel, that improvement will increase the value. It is the same way with solar panels!
A couple upfront considerations
As with any investment it is only as valuable as the person who will be buying see’s it as. Something to consider is not everyone is aware of the benefits of solar energy, and as such they may not see the value. In that same vain they may not care about the benefits of solar, and thus will not see the value. I would rebuttal these though, simply because with the growing availability of solar technology, and information about solar energy, the benefits are becoming more widely known, and so this isn’t likely to be an issue, and would be less so as the years go by.
A second consideration would be if you own outright your system or if you still have payments left on your system. If you outright own the system then it’s smooth sailing in transferring ownership. If you are still making payments this may include additional steps to transfer payments to the new owner. Even with the second it does not devalue the system itself, it would just include additional steps.
So how much value does solar add to a home?
As I stated above the increase in value is not concrete, because it will be based on the value the buyers see in it. That being said there has been numerous studies conducted over the years in multiple state to try to get a feel for the answer to this question.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who conducted a study from 2003 to 2013 on solar energy and homes, home buyers in six state in their eight state-study were willing to pay more for a home where the homeowner had solar. The average premium they found people willing to pay came out to $15,000. That’s a pretty significant increase in home value! This being conducted 9 years ago lends even more to the fact today, as solar become more popular. And with the tax incentives that come with solar energy, its becoming a no-brainer for many homeowner’s.
The NREL (The National Renewable Energy Laboratory) also published a fact sheet that stated that for every dollar saving on your energy bill yearly from solar, it increased the home value by twenty dollars. So say you saved $50 a month with your solar system, or $600 a year, that would be a home value increase of $12,000! Again not an insignificant increase by ay means!
Won’t Solar Panels Increase My Home Insurance?
When talking about the added value to a home, I have been asked if that come with the catch of an increased insurance premium? The simple answer is no, in most cases solar panels will not increase your homeowners insurance! So there is an added bonus that this increase in home value in most cases will not have any major drawback!
Now for full disclosure I want to state that the data I have given today is an average. And the information provided is true for average situations. However I cannot guarantee in every circumstance these numbers to be exact. These numbers may increase or decrease based on geographic location, the housing market, and variables of the like. Likewise while most home insurance companies will not increase your payment due to solar, it would be wise to check with your particular company to ensure that they will not.
So I hope this article will give a better understanding of how solar panels can increase your home value and answers any questions surrounding that. Check back for even more post on solar!
If you are interested in starting the process of making the switch give our office a call at 800.256.5867 to set up a free in home consultation.
Links to the studies I used for this article:
- https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy08osti/42733.pdf
- https://emp.lbl.gov/news/berkeley-lab-illuminates
