Green Your Home's Value with Sustainable Upgrades

We recently read a report in Plumbing & Mechanical that we thought was good news for all the people taking the plunge and investing in energy and water saving upgrades to their homes. It seems the investments are well worth it in terms of their impact on the resale price of your home, and the time it takes to recover the cost of your investment could be shorter than you expect.

P&M was reporting on a Washington Post article looks at the findings of two studies regarding the sales prices of sustainable homes in selected markets. The nonprofit Earth Advantage Institute found that newly constructed homes with third-party certifications for sustainability and energy efficiency sold for 8 percent more on average than noncertified homes in the six-county Portland metropolitan area. Existing houses with certifications sold for 30 percent more.

Meanwhile, a recent study of houses in San Diego and Sacramento, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, looked at the resale value of homes with solar PV panels installed. Researchers found that, on average, installing solar panels costs owners $35,967 in a sample of homes in the $500,000 range. But with federal and state subsidies, the net average cost came down to $20,892. This net expenditure, in turn, yielded an increase in appraised value of $20,194, a 97 percent rate of recovery on the investment.

You can read the entire article in the Washington Post Real Estate section.