If you’re planning to sell your home this summer, enhancing your environmental wellness can make all the difference to the value of your property. According to government analysis released this week, improving your home’s energy efficiency rating could add more than £16,000 to the asking price, without costing you the earth.
According to Richard Patterson, from myonlineestateagent.com, ‘Buyers want measures that will save money on bills. The most common requests are double glazing, an efficient boiler, and loft and cavity wall insulation. New and expensive technology such as solar panels don’t tend to add the same immediate value to a house. These are more long-term investments.’ Stephen O’Hara, at the Property & Energy Professional Association, adds, ‘Ensure that your loft insulation is at least 270 mm thick. You could install it yourself or pay a professional about £500 to do the job. Cavity wall insulation also costs about £500. These two measures should boost your EPC rating by at least one band.’
When you’re selling your home, you are required to produce an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which rates your home’s energy efficiency from G to A. The Government report explained that approximately half of UK homes are at a D rating, but if you can boost your house to the B Band, you can potentially add £16,000 to your sale price. This slightly depends on where you live, as the EPC rating is less significant in the East and South-East where house prices are higher. However, if you were to make the same improvements in the North-East, you could boost your home’s value by £25,000.
Ed Mead, at Douglas & Gordon estate agency, notes, ‘Green measures are starting to have an effect, especially if buyers are torn between two similar houses.’ However, that is not to say that you should go overboard with visible green installations. Adam Hesse, at Aston Mead estate agency in Surrey, says, ‘Solar panels tend to put off buyers. Many people don’t like to see wind turbines from a property — plus they can be incredibly noisy.’
However, James Alcock, at TheGreenAge, which offers energy efficiency home assessments, comments, ‘It is relatively easy to boost your home from G to E or E to D with better heating and insulation. But it gets harder and more expensive to boost your rating once you reach C. To get a rating of B or A you need to start producing your own electricity or hot water using solar PV, solar thermal or air-source heat pumps.’