Installing solar panels on a house to generate electricity often costs $20,000 or more, and many homeowners have turned to leasing programs to avoid those up-front costs. But most leases are for 20 years and that can present problems if someone wants to sell their house before the lease is completed.
Peter Auditore of El Granada, Calif., was happy with the leased solar panels he installed a few years back. When he decided to sell, he found a buyer who also appreciated the environmental benefits of solar panels. But then there was a hitch just as the sale was about to go through.
"The buyers all the sudden disclosed that they hadn't looked at the solar lease and that the lease was going to go out for another 15, 16 years," Auditore says. In last-minute negotiations, he and his real estate agent agreed to credit the buyer $10,000 in exchange for assuming the rest of the lease.
In this case, you could argue that those leased solar panels on the roof reduced the value of his home.
Real estate appraisers are grappling with this issue now. Sandra Adomatis is an appraiser in Punta Gorda, Fla. She wrote a book for the Appraisal Institute on how to value homes with energy efficient features.
"If you're in a market where the market participants — the buyers in the market — don't understand solar leases and they're fearful of it, they may totally steer away from homes with a leased system," she says.
Today, it's difficult to determine whether a particular house with leased solar panels is worth less, Adomatis says. There just isn't a long history of sales involving such houses.
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