Can going green by leasing solar panels for your roof cost you money — or headaches — when you go to sell the house?
Possibly both. Say you get pitched by one of the growing number of companies offering solar panels at no upfront cost that they claim will save you lots of money on electricity bills. Sounds like a slam dunk. So you sign on. Then a few years later you decide to sell the house. You assume that the presence of solar panels can only be a marketing plus, maybe even get you a higher price. Everybody goes for green, right?
But that’s when it gets weird. Some would-be buyers balk when they learn that they’ll need to qualify on credit to take over your solar lease payments for the next 15 to 17 years. Others say they like the house but won’t sign a contract unless you buy out the remaining lease payment stream — $15,000 or $20,000 or more — because they’re worried that the solar equipment will become obsolete or won’t save as much on electricity bills as advertised.
Issues like these are popping up increasingly in California and other states and are interfering in sales and closings, according to real estate industry experts. Consider what happened to Nora and Andrew Barber when they went to sell their home near Fresno, Calif. They needed to move because of an employment transfer to Thousand Oaks, near Los Angeles. Their house attracted offers quickly but two successive sets of buyers backed out of contracts because of the leased solar panels on the roof. They either thought the long-term cost of the lease from Clean Power Finance was too high or got cold feet after hearing what credit qualifications they’d need to take over the lease.