Publishing Energy Use at Resale
Channel: Nate the House Whisperer
Date: 25/11/2020

If there is one policy that can drive residential performance retrofits and electrification, it's publishing energy use at resale.

Currently efficient homes are not reliably valued at resale, if at all. Several of our clients have sold their homes and recouped $0 of the tens of thousands they spent. That's not scaleable with Americans moving on average every 7 years. 

By publishing energy use, homes that cost $50 or $100/month less than their comps should be worth some portion of that more. It's easy to see $5-30K value differences which could help recoup part of the cost of the upgrades. It should be as predictable as used car values.

Because energy use is a hard metric and turns into a cash flow, banks can lend against it directly without third party verification like an appraiser. 

In our opinion, there is no more important piece of policy for residential electrification than disclosing energy use at resale.