If you’ve read pretty much any article on the benefits of converting your home to solar, you’re probably well aware of the great ROI it provides by paying itself off over the course of several years, decreasing energy bills to zero.
But what if you’re thinking about selling your house and don’t have several years to wait for that return?
Turns out, the benefits of owning solar panels don’t just pay dividends on energy bills, but can also significantly increase your property’s value and help it sell faster, too,
A study by the Lawrence Berkely National Lab (LBL) titled “Selling into the sun: Price premium analysis of a multi-state dataset of solar homes” found that on average home buyers are willing to pay a premium of $15,000 more for homes with a standard 3.6-kW PV system.
Surveying over 20,000 homes throughout California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania, the research shows that premium prices for PV homes are a national trend.
The general breakdown for increasing a home’s value comes to about $4 per watt in California and $3 elsewhere. For example, homeowners in California installing a 5kW (5,000 watts) system could fetch up to $20,000 more on the market when selling their home.