The housing market has always flowed with the whims of the current buyers and the most market-savvy flippers know which features will sell a house faster this year as opposed to last year and which features seem to be timelessly appealing to any family looking for a new home. Lately, one particular trend has caught the public’s fancy. Energy efficiency. From energy star rated insulation and weatherproofing to solar panels on the roof, the more energy efficient (and obviously so), the more appealing a home becomes to the modern buyer. If you want to not only flip a home fast but for a much higher value than the structure itself might warrant, all you have to do is appealingly lower the power bill by incorporating energy efficient features into your flip design plan. Not sure where to start? Here are four desirable energy efficient additions that will work for almost any flip.
1) New Windows and Weather Stripping
The quality of windows is one of the most important factors to the energy efficiency of a home, and they’re often overlooked as long as they keep the rain out. However, the window’s actual capability of keeping AC or heat inside the home rather than leaking into the neighborhood can be invisibly compromised. Check the seal on the windows and if they’re double-paned, look for signs that the insulating gas-seal has been broken. If the windows aren’t perfectly sealed, replace them with upgraded, energy-star approved windows. New windows or not, make sure to install new weather stripping to ensure the windows seal completely when closed.
2) Install Solar Panels – Credit or Net-Zero
Everyone is going crazy for solar panels for a variety of reasons. Whether they’re prepper-inclined or just want to save money on the power bill. Solar panels are a lot easier and less expensive to install than the big home installation companies want you to think they are. All you need to budget for are a few solar panels, an inverter, charge controller, and a grid-tie or battery bank. Most states offer a solar credit system that gives power bill discounts for grid-tied solar generation.
If, on the other hand, you’re renovating a small home (or have a big solar budget and a lot of roof space) you can also use batteries and a little creative electrician work to make the home self-supporting, able to generate as much power as it needs with enough batteries to last overnight and through rainy days.
3) Energy Efficient Appliances
If the appliances that came with the house are old, they’re probably also inefficient. For only a few thousand of your renovation budget, you can significantly upgrade the quality of life in the home, as well as the look and feel of the kitchen and utility areas, simply by purchasing new energy-efficient appliances. These will not only spruce up the place and de-emphasize the age of the building, it will also lower every single future power bill, including your own while you renovate.
4) Extra Insulation
Never assume the quality of a home’s insulation until you’ve inspected it. In some cases, there might be room for insulation but the builders never put it in, or some previous tenant removed it, or there is insulation but it’s decayed badly since the home was built. However, the quality and quantity of insulation between the walls and in the attic significantly determine the quality of life in a home, preventing the unwanted transferrence of both heat and sound through the walls. Be prepared to completely replace or simply bolster the insulation with modern, efficient, and remarkably inexpensive materials.
Energy efficiency is the new hot trend that most home buyers are looking for and everyone will be happy to have. Tackle a new flipping project with insulation, weather stripping, and efficient appliances in mind. But most of all, consider solar panels. Not only are they an attractive addition to any roof and highly popular, they are also a permanent increase to the value of the home and can reduce or eliminate power bills for decades. For more helpful flipping tips, contact us today!