Study Finds Solar Panels Increase Home Values

[Fledermaus]

All those homeowners who have been installing residential solar panels over the last decade may find it was a more practical decision than they thought. The electricity generated may have cost more than that coming from the local power company (half of which, nationwide, comes from burning coal), but if they choose to sell their homes, the price premium they will get for the solar system should let them recoup much of their original capital investment.

That is the conclusion of three researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who looked at home sales — both homes with photovoltaic systems and homes without — in California over an eight-and-a-half-year period ending in mid-2009. The abstract of their study states, “the analysis finds strong evidence that California homes with PV systems have sold for a premium over comparable homes without PV systems.”

The premium ranged from $3.90 to $6.40 per watt of capacity, but tended most often to be about $5.50 per watt. This, the study said, “corresponds to a home sales price premium of approximately $17,000 for a relatively new 3,100-watt PV system (the average size of PV systems in the study).”
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/study-finds-solar-panels-increase-home-values/?partner=rss&emc=rss

[msongs]

1. we have solar. $5.5o/watt resale is half what we paid to install, before rebates nt

[diane in sf]

2. What was your price after rebates? The price of instaling solar is going down.