Pulte homes using Solar to invigorate sluggish home sales
Pulte Homes is aiming to become one of the largest residential home builder providers of solar powered homes in the USA if it’s new solar product offering takes hold with its home buyers. Pulte is offering homes with optional solar-cell embedded roofs built by San Jose based company SunPower Corp.
Pulte began offering the solar products to customers locally here in our Arizona communities only on Jan. 1st but the optional solar products have been offered to customers in other communities outside of Arizona well before this year.
The company says the solar equipment adds about $13,000 to $17,000 in cost to the price of a home with those prices including rebates from Arizona Public Service that Pulte takes directly then subtracts from the homes sales price. A mention in a recent Arizona Republic article quoted a Pulte company spokeswoman as saying that homeowners who buy aftermarket panels must apply for and wait for the (APS) rebate themselves, which makes buying them as part of the home purchase more convenient. In addition, the Pulte spokeswoman also noted that roofs with embedded solar cells are more attractive than those outfitted with aftermarket solar panels.
Potential home buyers are clearly taking notice of green and sustainable technologies, especially those that have a direct link to energy efficiency as solar panels do. In these tough economic times the cost of adding solar panels to the home and the long investment payback for such a purchase has really been the roadblock to more homeowners adopting the technology. However, when given the opportunity to finance the products in to a home’s purchase price, homeowners might just say yes much more than they have in the past.
