Appraise Solar Homes Easily & Accurately With Pearl Certification's New Equity Calculator Tool for Appraisers

The Pearl Equity Calculator is the industry's first tool to automatically calculate discounted cash flows of certified contractor installations for the purposes of home valuation

Pearl Certification, a national provider of third-party certifications for high-performing homes, recently launched the Pearl Equity Calculator to help U.S. homeowners realize the proper return on investment (ROI) for their home solar installations. 

While some studies have shown that solar can add up to $4-$5/watt, or 4% to the value of a home, many homeowners are not seeing those returns when they actually sell their homes. The Pearl Equity Calculator helps to solve this problem by equipping homeowners, contractors, and appraisers with the resources they need to accurately capture the value of residential photovoltaic (PV) systems. 

"In the vast majority of sales, the homeowner provides no information about their rooftop solar," LeBaron said. "As a result, appraisers have no basis for recognizing its value in the appraisal. To address this pain point, we've created a special version of the Pearl Equity Calculator tool exclusively for appraisers. It's free, easy-to-use, and provides an accurate assessment based on certified data from trusted sources." 

Industry professionals are already expressing excitement about the power of Pearl's Equity Calculator to support an industry-accepted valuation methodology for residential solar. "Pearl is the market leader in high-performance home metrics," said Woody Fincham, SRA, AI-RRS, ASA, RAA. "Knowing that Pearl has now created a Solar PV Calculator to assist appraisers and others in understanding the value of an owned solar system is wonderful news."  

The Pearl Equity Calculator is the industry's first tool to automatically calculate discounted cash flows of certified contractor installations for the purposes of home valuation. Here's how it works:

  1. Sign Up For Free — The Pearl Equity Calculator is free for all licensed appraisers. Creating an account is quick and easy, and automatically provides a central place to house all high-performing home appraisals.
  2. Enter Solar Data — With auto-population and simplified data entry, it only takes a few minutes to complete a valuation for a solar installation.
  3. Receive Discounted Cash Flow — The Pearl Equity Calculator will return the discounted cash flow along with all the supporting documentation to use in the appraisal of a high-performing home with solar.

For more information and to sign up to use the free Pearl Equity Calculator for Appraisers, please visit pearlcalculator.com/appraiser-signup

About Pearl Certification

Pearl Certification is a national firm that provides third-party certification of high-performing homes: homes with "performance assets" that make them healthy, safe, comfortable, energy and water-efficient. Pearl Certification was accepted into the prestigious National Association of Realtors Reach Accelerator program in 2017. For more information, visit pearlcertification.com.

Media Contact
Lindsay Bachman
Communications Director
(412) 443-2996

Source: Pearl Certification