Northern California Real Estate Agent: Are solar panels a good investment?

Solar panels, why should you get them? Are they a good investment? And will you see the value when you go to sell your home? All that and more after this. Thanks for joining us on our video blog. Again, this is Andrew Lam, team leader of the lam team at ReMaxGold and joined here by Rick Davis today with Revolve Solar to talk about a couple of questions involving solar panels. And, you know, should I get them, how much are they, how much do they save me, and are they a good investment? Of course, we want to direct your attention to two spots on the blog. Number one being if you're a home buyer, you can click the Search all homes link and that will direct you to basically a backstage pass to the MLS to view all homes, all property descriptions and photos and, you know, interior, exterior, plat maps, all of that. And if you're a home seller, please feel free to take use of our free home value link. That will give you an immediate value of your home and also show you every recent sale in the area as well as active listings, so you can compare yourself. Another question we get is related to value. How much value do solar panels add to my home? Is it the actual cash value of the panels themselves? And I'm sure that varies based on the quality and where the panels come from, all that. But when I sell my home, how much value will I get for the upgrade I did of putting solar panels on? Yeah.

So every study that's been done on this, there's a huge residential study done in California in particular, looking at valuation boosts tied to solar. And in almost every instance, there is a substantial valuation increase associated with the solar purchase. So the home that has solar, you think, all things being equal, you have two identical homes, one has solar on it and is paying, in essence, no electricity bills and one does not. It's a pretty straightforward understanding of how you assess that that one would have a greater value. Right. And so there's a lot of studies out there showing that. But what's really interesting from a valuation perspective is there is, there's almost an arbitrage opportunity. What you're actually doing, let's say you put it on an average house that's maybe spends $25,000 in gross cost for the value of the solar system they put on their house. But remember, they're not actually paying that full $25,000, even if they were paying cash, because there's a 30% investment tax credit that comes with that solar. So 30% of that cost is immediately rebated, then dollar for dollar credit on their tax bills. And so it's this, you know, you paid less and got more immediately from day one. And another interesting aspect is as that valuation goes up on your home, they can't increase your property tax for that extra valuation boost associated with the solar.

Well, it sounds like getting solar is a no brainer for homeowners.

Well, you know, it is if the economics sort out. So what I, you know, encourage folks to do, friends, family that come to me and talk to is have someone that's qualified, you know, that ideally is local, that can come out and provide a real assessment. Looking at your bills, your roof, talk about, make sure you understand what products are actually going to be that they're using. There are differences, you know, there's, you know, there's a lot of products that come in from China. Maybe that's not the optimal solution for you that you want in your house, even though it may be a little bit cheaper. So you know, look at those things and then understand the financing structures there are you mentioned loans, leases, there are other sort of variations of those things and there's something that's going to be right for you and your situation. So give you an example. If you're retired, you don't have taxes that you're probably paying, maybe you're on a pension. Well, you wouldn't want to purchase the system outright because all that tax credit offset, there's nothing to offset on your taxes. Right, you're not paying taxes. So in that instance it may be much better if you have a lease or power purchase agreement type structure where you can save immediately, never come out of pocket, lock in your payments. That's a nice hedge against your future energy cost. And you don't have to worry about the tax credit because in that instance the financier is retaining that tax credit and giving you lower overall financing cost in exchange. So those are the types of things. I mean, we like to spend a lot of time with our customers to understand their specific situation, their electric bills, their roof, their financing and come up with something that is optimal for them.

Okay, if they wanted to do that and have revolved solar come out to their home, what's the method for that?

They can go to revolvesolar.com and ask for a free consultation. Someone will come out, they'll set up an appointment, they'll ask for some utility data before doing that so they can come sort of fully informed about what those options might look like. And someone will sit down and spend time with them, have that back and forth and say, hey, look, this is, this is what's possible with solar. And by the same token, if it turns out it's not a good project, if it's not cash, you'll at least know that too, right? Hey, there's something about my roof that makes it not good. There's something about my financial situation that makes it not as attractive. We'll let you know that. It's not 100% of the time that solar's a great deal. So for some people it actually isn't. But for most in this area, it's a really good financial deal. They should be looking to save tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the warranted lifetime of the solar system.

Well, for a free, obviously no risk, no obligation solar assessment, definitely feel free to make use of the link below or just reach out by phone or online to Revolve solar. And thank you again for joining us on our video blog. If you have any questions at all that we haven't answered so far or just any comments on your current solar solution, please feel free to send us an email or leave a comment here and we'd be happy to chat with you and answer any questions you have. Thanks and have a great day.