Energy effciency makes your house worth more - official

Yes- interesting that energy awareness is beginning to have a measurable financial effect- worth almost $10,000 for a $500,000 house, so it’s worth investigating the energy conservation ‘easy pickings’ like putting decent batts in the roof if they aren’t already installed.

It would also help if the rating method was more transparent- it’s not, because it uses commercial software and apparently it’s got flaws. My architectural friends tell me that, eg it can’t/doesn’t take the thermal benefits of party walls into account. This is possibly why they study was restricted to detached houses.

Quite an interesting and legitimate study. The basic finding is that each 0.5 EER star is worth an extra 1.9% on your property’s value. So it could be a worthwhile investment in the short term just to boost the sale price, particularly for very low rating houses.

The other interesting finding was that ex-public housing properties sell at a 10% discount – probably the neighbours.