Post date: Dec 18, 2015 9:43:12 AM
A new report entitled "Survey of Buyers, Sellers and Realtors Involved in San Diego Third-Party Owned Solar Home Transactions--A Qualitative Assessment," a combined effort by Berkeley Lab and the Center for Sustainable Energy.
The research involved a survey of buyers, sellers and realtors that were parties to transactions of San Diego homes with third-party owned ("TPO") solar systems that sold between 2010 and 2013. (TPO systems includes both leased as well as those under power purchase agreements, or "PPA"s.) The effort allows an initial look at their reactions to these transactions, which are growing in number as the market for TPO solar systems expands.
Although the research began more than a year ago, the work responds to a number of recent press accounts including by Bloomberg Business, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, and the Washington Post that have made assertions that leased systems are "scaring buyers," "killing sales" or "may not be a good idea" because of complications when the homes transact. This provides the first bit of evidence of how frequent such an occurrence is.
The research found that the overwhelming majority of respondents believe the transactions occurred smoothly with little or no effect on home values. There was some evidence that buyers were scared off or withdrew offers of these homes, but only in a minority of the cases. Most of the leases were transferred to the buyer; the rest were bought out either by the seller or, in some cases, the buyer. Finally, although most respondents saw no apparent effect on the time on the market, some believed it slowed the sales process.
The need for education was another key takeaway from the work. A large majority of the buyers had never owned a solar home and therefore the sellers and realtors played an important role in educating them. In most cases the seller shared the electric bills (in addition to the TPO agreement details) with the buyer so they could analyze the cost effectiveness of the arrangement.
The research summary is available for download here.