The Conflict Between Solar and Real Estate
The solar and real estate industries have been in conflict for the last 10 years. This has been one of the great quandaries in the solar industry as it has been difficult to understand why many real estate agents oppose solar.
At Spark, we had a salesman who had a customer sign up to go solar. The day before, the customer decided to call and cancel. This person had been so excited– what changed? When asked why they were canceling, this person said it was his real estate agent who told him that it wasn't a good idea to go solar.
Of course, the real estate agents shouldn’t be at fault here. It’s simply the fact that there isn’t enough knowledge about solar energy available to the general public.
The key is to educate homeowners and real estate agents about going solar, how to value it, and how to effectively transfer it from home seller to homebuyer.
Buying a solar home can be like… well, imagine you are moving from a remote Eskimo village and buying a home with a car in the garage. As an Eskimo, you are familiar with personal transportation in the form of a snowmobile. When you open the garage, you see that it comes with a car. This car has four doors and four wheels and five seats and it’s red and it doesn’t appear it’ll do too well in the snow. You have no idea what kind of car it is, how valuable it is, or whether the car is owned, leased or financed. You don’t know what kind of gas mileage it has, or if it even runs on gas or electricity.
How do you place a value on this vehicle?
How do you know how much you’re willing to pay in addition to the value of the home for this vehicle? How do you know if this vehicle in the garage is going to be a benefit to your life or some sort of curse? You’ve seen pictures of cars, you’ve heard of people owning and driving cars and you’ve even even been driven home in a car. But that doesn’t mean you know anything about the car that you’re about to buy with the home you're buying.
Lucky for you, your realtor knows about cars. They've been driving them for the last 20 years and are familiar with all of the questions that you might have when trying to buy your first car. They don’t necessarily know how to do all of the maintenance on them but they know enough to assign a value and advise you on whether or not you want to pay in addition to the home value for that car.
Buying a solar home is a lot like an Eskimo buying a car with a home without ever having driven a car. The only difference is that the home seller probably has a good idea what that car might be worth, whereas the typical home seller of a solar home doesn’t know a whole lot about the value of a solar system other than what they paid for it.
Together, we can change that. Solar homes also generally sell for more. Interested in learning more about this investment opportunity? Spark utilizes key data points set forth by industry professionals to calculate values for both homeowners and home buyers. Reach out today to learn more.
