Solar panels on homes; there has already been a lot of research into the yield models when solar panels are used for their entire lifetime. But what if the resident moves before that? Are solar panels a powerful point of sale or does the investment mean nothing in home sales?

In order to determine what the actual yield of solar panels is with home sales, the data of 23,943 home sales have been investigated for this study. The real estate data was made available by the NVM (Dutch Association of Real Estate Agents) and Matrixian Group. The study compared the sale prices of 2,351 homes with solar panels to the sale prices of 21,592 homes without solar panels in the period between 2012 and 2015. The method applied is the hedonistic regression model. The programme Stata was used for this. 11 factors are included in the model, such as home type, living space, location, maintenance state, etc. The model has an r2-adjusted of 82.74%.

For solar panels, a significant price effect of 2.56% on the home value was found. The price effect comes down to an average premium of € 7,456 for an average installation of 3,888 Wp. The costs for installing at this scope are € 6,998. No significant regional differences were found, and no differences were found between terraced, double-detached, detached or corner homes, nor were any significant differences found between new construction and existing homes. No significant pattern in price development was found in the period between 2012 and 2015 either. The research results show that solar panels retain their full value with home sales. This study can help appraisers and banks to better valuate solar panels. Sellers of solar panels can show consumers that their investment retains its value based on actual transactions.

The above text comes from the study of Mr J. (Joost) Möller MRE – TIAS, Matrixian Group has contributed to this study by making specific home characteristics available.