Research on the effects of clean energy and energy efficiency upgrades in the home buying process reveals a premium for homes with solar panels and heat pumps, but a disconnect between what consumers say they want and information available in listings and from agents.
New research conducted by residential energy data platform 257, in collaboration with the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC), has revealed that homebuyers pay measurable premiums for homes with energy upgrades.
Specifically, the researchers found that home listings that explicitly mentioned rooftop solar panels sold for 2% higher than comparable homes, equating to a $10,000 premium, based on the median sales price of $557,000.
Listings that mentioned heat pumps were also associated with higher sale prices of between 0.6% and 1%, on average, resulting in price premiums of between $2,300 to $3,900 on homes with a median sales price of $399K.
Despite the findings of price premiums for energy upgrades, researchers found that only 8.3% of the 2025 home listings they surveyed mentioned energy-efficient assets. However, the share of listings mentioning energy efficiency upgrades nearly tripled between 2015 and 2025, suggesting that the practice represents a growing trend.
