4 Ways Solar Panels Can Improve the Value of Your Home

When you’re trying to sell a house, you obviously want the best price possible. That’s why you probably invest in all kinds of repairs, fixtures and fittings, and whatnot. You hope that it’ll help you fetch a better price on the market.

However, if you really want to see those numbers going up, you need to invest in solar panels.

To give you an idea, a house with a solar panel system installed can sell for 3-4% higher prices than a house without one. Not only a higher price but a house with a solar panel system can also sell a lot faster.

Here are four ways solar panels can improve the value of your home.

Energy Savings

Since these solar panels are powered by the sun, the resulting energy is practically free of cost. This means you get to enjoy major savings on your energy consumption and electricity bills.

Accordingly, each $1 you save through these solar panels results in a $20 increase in the value of your home, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Although, the exact numbers can vary from place to place and depend on the weather and government regulations.

To put that into perspective, for every kilowatt (kW) of solar panel installed in your home, you can expect the value to rise by about $6,000. Similarly, if you’ve got a small system of 3.1 kW, that’s more than an $18,000 increase.

Moreover, on average, a solar panel system costs somewhere around $10000 to $20000. Considering that, you can easily recover all that cost just from the premium you’ll get on your house value.

What’s more, as you install bigger solar panel systems, the increase in the value of your home also keeps on getting bigger. From here you can consider a battery storage system to dispatch power at night when the sun is not shining. Saving you more money and boosting your sustainability efforts.

Tax Redemptions

Although this can vary from place to place, in some states, the local government offers tax redemptions if you install solar panel systems in your house. Normally, if you install anything that might increase the property value, it gets counted towards the property taxes. Eventually, then, you have to pay a greater amount of tax.

However, things are different with a solar panel system. Even though it represents a significant addition to your property value, many local governments don’t include it in property taxes. Therefore, if you have a $5,000 kitchen, it’ll definitely increase your property taxes. A $15000 solar panel system on your roof, though, won’t affect your property taxes at all.

The low property taxes, despite the expensive solar panel system, can be quite attractive for some homeowners.

Consequently, they might be willing to pay extra for it. As a result, it can help improve the value of your home.

Government Incentives

Similar to tax redemptions, many local governments also offer various incentives. These incentives help to encourage the installation and use of solar panel systems. For instance, aside from the tax redemptions, some states offer rebates or refunds of some part of the initial cost.

So, let’s say the whole solar panel system costs about $20,000, from the parts to the installation.

Under this rebate system, the government might offer you half of the amount, i.e., $10000, back. This way, the investment doesn’t cost you as much, and your recovery period is drastically cut short.

Other than that, you can also benefit from Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs). Every time your solar panel system generates 1000 kW hours, you earn an SREC certificate.

You can then sell the certificate to utility companies. These SREC certificates can help you earn well more than $300 in some states.

Incentives such as these can be really attractive and valuable for some people as they offer additional sources of cash. Consequently, they help in driving up the value of your home.

Environmentally Friendly

Unlike your usual sources of energy where you burn fossil fuels to get electricity, solar panels use renewable energy from the sun. It’s safe, it’s clean, and it doesn’t have any harmful effects or cause any pollution.

With all the climatic change around us, switching to renewable energy sources such as these solar panels is more than necessary.

Accordingly, a lot of people realize this and are willing to pay extra for these solar systems so that they can make a difference in society. Besides all the monetary benefits, these solar panels are looked upon favorably, and this can help improve the value of your home.

Final Words

There’s no doubt that solar panels are great for the environment. Additionally, with these four ways that solar panels can improve the value of your home, they’re excellent for your pocket as well.

While buying and setting up solar panels can be a little expensive initially, the resulting free energy, savings, and higher house value, make it all worth it.

Although, it depends on other factors too such as where you live, the size of the solar panels, and more.

This is a guest post by Green Coast, a renewable energy and green living blog.

About the Author

Green Coast is a renewable energy and green living community focused on helping others live a better, greener life. We believe that energy and green living has become far too complex, so we created a number of different guides to build a sustainable foundation. You can follow updates on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

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