To find out more about homebuyers of the future, Rightmove has analysed data from their keyword search tool, which identified the most popular features appearing in property searches. While current trends may not always retain their prevalence on the market, it’s helpful to see which terms are slowly climbing up the ranks for buyer interest, as this can paint a picture of what future buyers will be expecting for their homes.
Since the Government announced its plans to reduce the minimum energy performance certificate rating by 2025, many buyers will be looking for properties already meeting that standard or near enough so that they won’t have to worry about costly bills and amendments later down the line. There’s an increasingly large demographic of new buyers seeking a home with a small carbon footprint, and the first thing they’ll check is the property’s EPC rating.
Popular green features
Making homes greener will play a critical role in helping the UK to reach Net Zero by 2050, which is why the government hopes to get as many residential homes as possible up to an EPC rating of ‘C’ by 2035. Because of this, green features are becoming more popular amongst buyers.
Features such as solar panels and heat pumps have been climbing in the rankings of Rightmove’s key word sort tool. Searches for solar panels were reported to rise in position 500 in November 2020, to position 98 in June 2022. Heat pumps also climbed from 1,000 to 190.
There are 73% more green terms such as ‘sustainable’ and ‘low carbon’ now being used as key selling points in descriptions by agents, compared with the start of 2020.
In the near future buyers are likely to be asking a lot more about the types of features being installed in the latest new-build homes. Many will express more interest in things like PV panels, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, EV chargers, reduced water usage and installing air source heat pumps.
As buyers become more aware of climate change and their rising energy bills, green improvements on your home will become more and more valuable over time.
Best locations for energy efficient homes
The UK government published within their ‘Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’ data regarding energy efficiency ratings for dwellings in England.
Energy efficiency can be measured through the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) which assigns one of seven bands to a dwelling from A (most energy efficient) to G (least energy efficient).
The North East had among the highest share in these three bands (43.3%) and the smallest proportion in the two lowest bands (F and G). The North West also followed close behind with a share of 39.7% in the highest three bands, and the East Midlands at 37.6%.
Improving your home’s EPC rating could add 16% to its value
Rightmove analysed over 200,000 homes listed on their website that had been sold twice but had an improved EPC rating the second time to find out if improvements to a home’s EPC rating have an impact on the asking price.
Their findings outlined that sellers who had upgraded their rating from an F to a C added an average of 16% to the price achieved for their home. This premium is on top of local house price growth which the houses were likely to have benefited from since first being sold.
As much as saving on energy bills is an incentive, the improvements also secure a long-term investment, whereby you can sell your home for a higher price than you paid for it.
Get in touch with your local Whitegates branch for more information today!
