If solar salespersons had a dollar for each time someone said, ‘I don’t want solar because we’re moving out in a few years,' it would make them more money than their commissions. To be fair, it does make sense from the homeowner’s perspective – what use is a system that lasts 30 years if they are moving out in five years?

The answer to that is (and has always been) the ability of solar panels to improve your home’s valuation. But now, we finally have a massive study to prove this, with solid numbers to back it up. Let’s go see what it says.

Power in the Pitch

I was delighted to read the title of this study – ‘Power in the Pitch,’ which signifies how the study’s findings can make a sales pitch more powerful. So I went in with a lot of excitement, but inside were words like ‘Continuous variables were transformed where appropriate to address skewness and scale differences: the inverse hyperbolic sine transformation was applied where there are genuine zeros.’ It reminded me of why I never became a statistician.

But there were gems inside – the findings of the study – and so I dug through it, often pulling my hair out through the jargon. Ultimately, I found five main takeaways, as follows:

Home Value Increases by 1.34% on Average

The most important finding of the study is the proof that solar power systems increase your home’s value. The researchers analysed listings on www.realestate.co.nz, using a four-year data set of 79,944 matched listings and sales, of which 892 had solar panels installed on them. They chose listings with similar attributes to minimize the effect of variables.

The analysis finally found that homes equipped with solar energy systems command a price premium of 1.34%. The average Kiwi home cost about $910,118 in 2025, which means the average home can see a price increase of about $12,195. This is more or less the price of a new solar PV system.

In a way, buying a solar power system feels even more lucrative if you have plans to move out of your home – you’ll get to reap the benefits while you’re staying there, and you’ll recover a big chunk of your initial cost when you move out.

Your Home May or May Not Sell Faster

The authors of the study claim they found ‘no significant difference in days on market’ for the analysed listings. We can assume that this means home buyers are willing to pay more for homes with solar but aren’t noticeably eager to buy them faster.

This may reflect a general attitude of slight indifference towards solar power systems, and part of this could be the lack of incentives for the technology. More on this later.

Location Does Not Matter

Unlike American studies, this study found that the increase in the cost of a home is not strictly correlated to the location. Homes with solar panels in a location with higher solar potential should theoretically attract more attention, but they don’t seem to.

According to the report’s authors, this may reflect the nation’s early stage of solar adoption, where demand and supply are more or less similar everywhere, installation costs don’t vary much with location, and buyers are not well aware of things such as solar irradiance.

Solar is More of a Lifestyle Upgrade

The authors of the report analysed the house listings to understand how realtors marketed homes with solar panels, and found something interesting. Most people would expect the selling points of such homes to be energy cost savings or sustainability. However, the study discovered that real estate agents emphasise solar as a luxury/lifestyle feature.

Here is a graph from the report, showing which topics were emphasised when selling solar-powered homes. Note that the difference between the blue (non-solar) and green (solar) bars is the biggest for the topic of ‘luxury’.

That’s not all. The study also found that the emphasis on luxury/lifestyle for solar-powered homes is relatively new. Here’s another graph showing how the emphasis on ‘lifestyle appeal’ shoots up from 2023.

What must have caused this? New Zealand witnessed two extreme weather events in the first two months of 2023 – the Anniversary Floods and Cyclone Gabrielle. But this could not be the cause, as this should have instead increased the emphasis on energy independence.

The authors found that such a shift in topic weightage was also visible in non-solar listings, which means this was related to something bigger. One explanation could be the cooling down of New Zealand’s housing market in 2023, owing to high interest rates and low turnover. But we can never be sure.

Ultimately, as the study wisely puts it, ‘this bundling may help position PV within a wider quality package, but it also risks obscuring the feature’s direct value.’

Policy Implications

At one point, the report says that understanding how people see renewable installations in property transactions can help align market incentives with sustainability goals. But what does this truly mean for the solar industry? Does a greater interest in solar-powered homes warrant some new incentive or policy? And what kind?

Perhaps, the government could introduce property tax exemptions for solar power systems, like so many states in the U.S. Perhaps, there could be benefits related to the closing costs of a home. We cannot be sure as of now, but a housing-related incentive for solar will certainly help.

Comparing with Other Countries

The study not only offers an insight into New Zealand’s market, but also compares it with two other key markets.

The first comparison is with our neighbour, Australia, which is considered a mature solar market. The authors state that Australian studies generally report premiums ranging from 1.9% to 3.2%. These numbers are higher than New Zealand’s, which makes sense, given that the Aussies have much better incentives and policies, as well as better solar potential in most areas.

The second comparison is with the U.S., the birthplace of solar photovoltaics and one of the biggest markets for the technology. There are several studies from the U.S., and the most recent one is from 2024, which estimates an average premium of about 4% for solar-powered homes.

The study’s author attributes New Zealand’s lower premium values to relatively low electricity prices, low PV penetration, the absence of strong net metering incentives, and limited adoption of household batteries.

Summing It Up

Yvonne Matthews and Chad Harland’s research titled ‘Power in the pitch: narratives and market value of solar PV homes in New Zealand’ and published in the International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, is a valuable study that gives us some concrete numbers on how homes with solar power systems sell compared to regular homes.

 Here are the 3 questions this study addresses, and their short answers:

1. Do properties with solar PV sell for higher prices or more quickly than comparable non-solar properties?

Finding: Yes, solar properties sell for about 1.34% higher compared to similar properties without solar. However, there is no notable difference in the speed of sale.

 2. Is any price or speed-of-sale effect mediated by local solar potential or neighbourhood uptake rates?

Finding: No, the customer does not seem much aware of or concerned about solar irradiance values and adoption levels in certain neighbourhoods.

3. Are solar properties marketed differently from other properties, and if so, how?

Finding: Yes, solar properties are marketed differently, but not with an emphasis on sustainability or cost savings, as feels intuitive. Instead, solar properties are marketed with an emphasis on luxury/lifestyle appeal.

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