If you were looking at homes for sale. Would one with an installed whole house generator that uses natural gas be an attractive feature? Would it be a positive factor in choosing a home to purchase?
In general would most homes be worth slightly more because they have a generator?
For example, two homes in the same neighborhood. Similar appearance and floor plan. Both nicely maintained. Would the one with the generator be worth an extra 6 to 8 k? That’s about what it costs to get a whole house generator installed.
Yes it would be a positive vs a house that did not have it but I would not ascribe anywhere close to the full installed retail value of the generator as that differential. The number of power outages where I would have needed a generator for food preservation versus it simply being convenient for the few hours of the power being out is 1 time (maybe) over the past 20 years. It’s far more of a convenience than a necessity in most developed areas of the United States.
They are extremely useful if you are in an area subject to power outages on any kind of regular basis (rural areas, especially ones with hurricanes, tornados, or heavy snow).
My dad has one (lives like 8 miles from city limits) but his is a heavy duty portable unit effectively permanently mounted in his garage with the appropriate disconnect units/venting in place. I seriously doubt is anything that would rate a $6,000 installation even if professionally done.
(I guess you could say his was professionally done as he is a Contractor…ymmv
That is the answer. It is a generally a good thing to have as long as it is truly dependable and in good shape but it is one of those things that is incidental to the value of a house and hardly ever a tie-breaker. People that place real value on those types of additions could install a brand new one in virtually any house. It falls into the ‘Other’ amenities category. A portable $750 - $1500 gas or diesel generator will meet the vast majority of most people’s needs to keep basic operations running.
A $6000 - $10,000 system will keep your whole house operational when the rest of the neighborhood is dead but that will also buy a whole lot of nice hotel rooms for a long time if you ever need it in the first place. Unless you are a farmer or run some kind of sensitive home-based business, the number of scenarios that justify spending that much money for a professionally installed system are few and far between. If things get bad enough to need weeks worth of power for your whole house, you may be better off just using the money to leave for a while or possibly permanently.
There are probably neighborhoods here and there which adopt a sort of prepper chic. I’m imagining an expensive ranchette development on the far outskirts of Dallas built and advertised for macho guys with 6 figure incomes who like to think they’re prepared for anything.
In that mileu a serious generator setup might be worth half what you paid to put it in.
Otherwise it’d be a minor amenity with little tiebreaking power for almost all potential buyers.
Anecdote: I recently bought my new residence, a mid-rise beach condo in greater Miami. My unit is separately rigged with a semi-portable gasoline generator for post-hurricane power. Which the previous owner really enjoyed the last time the area got hit and power was out for a few days.
I thought it was a neat feature, and honestly expect to use it for a couple days every few years at least. But it was way, way down the list of reasons I bought this place vs. some other place.
I’m glad I have it, but I doubt I’d spend the money to install it if it wasn’t already here. Ask me again after the next hurricane and I might sing a different tune.
After Sandy, people were installing them left and right. Kids with money were buying two and having one of them installed at their parent’s house. Granted, this year there hasn’t been a “Sandy” so far, but all the poles & wires
are still above ground just like they were 100 years ago & the governor has done nothing to demand otherwise.
Now, if you feel there may be a grid outtage by you, maybe to you its worth it and maybe to your buyer its worth it. (There are STILL some neighborhoods in Hoboken where the term “shit-storm” just isn’t funny)
I’m not a realtor and I’m not buying or selling a house. Still, if I was signing my name for a quarter mill and for 8k more I could have one? Yeah, I’d want one.
hmm, I may take the generator with me then if I sell my house someday. I’d leave the transfer switch since its hardwired into the panel. The generator could be hooked up at a new house with a new transfer switch.
Six to eight thousand dollars seems pretty high. I happen to be aware of the current figures because my parents are installing one in their house. They’re paying $1700 for the generator and installation. They’re currently getting quotes from the gas companies about getting the tanks installed but it’s going to be less than the cost of the generator.
We bought this house with a 7.5k unit installed. All the neighbors laughed… “Yeah, the doctor put that in like eight years ago, don’t think it’s run a half hour.”
Three big storms, three long power outages (10, 8 and 3 days) later, during which we had everything except an oven and dryer, and the neighbors had all sent the families out of state to stay with relatives while da menfolk ate cold beans and showered down at the high school… nobody was laughing and there are a LOT of WHG’s around now.
If you live in an area that is at all isolated or prone to power line damage, $2k for a basic partial-house unit can be cheap insurance. We’ll be replacing this one with a 20kw whole-house soon. They used to be about $1k per KW, but have gotten downright cheap.
A good compromise is to put in a transfer panel and pad, and buy a good portable gen the minute trouble is on the horizon.
I am selling a house that has one right now. From what I gather from my RE agent, it is not adding much value to the house. It was worth it, though, for those three periods of 5-7 day power failures that I used it.
I would love one, and may get one. However, I wouldn’t pay $8,000 extra to buy a house with a ten year old one. I’d prorate it.
My husband and I are getting older, and sometimes a bad snowstorm or ice storm will take the power out, and be bad enough that the roads aren’t cleared for a couple days. He is supposed to avoid the cold, and I’m no spring chicken, so it would be nice to know we will be warm. And have TV.
The biggest decision we had to make was whether to run our central ac. Running central ac forced us into buying a 16kw generator. We did consider getting a 12kw and installing an emergency 110v window unit in our bedroom. Could have saved maybe 1k in cost.
We were fortunate that our central heat, water heater, and dryer are gas. We could have even gotten by with a 8kw generator. But that would mean no AC in August when its 104 degrees outside. That’s dangerous heat stroke weather.
The generator I had (17KW) ran one of the AC units - for the first floor. The last power outage was 5 days, in 100+ degree weather (in MD, no less). Ah the praise I got from my family. You would have thought I managed to cure cancer.
I think it depends very much on the risk assessment (or risk ignorance) and risk tolerance of each potential buyer. I could even see some considering it a negative if they thought they’d never need it - it’s one more thing to take up space and potentially need maintenance.
In a sellers market you’d have more chance to find the buyer who saw the value and had it impact price. Most places aren’t exactly sellers markets in the US yet.
Definitely a nice option - after losing power for eight days last winter during the massive ice storm I definitely can appreciate that. It’s not just a convenience/comfort issue; losing power for that long in that brutal cold weather leads to water pipe freezing and breakage. Which can be catastrophically expensive.
But I agree with those who say that’s a grossly inflated cost for a WHG. In my entire life, apart from the polar freeze thingie last year, I don’t think I’ve lost power for more than a few hours at a time. If it mattered to me, I could get a portable gennie, or even get a WHG installed, for a whole lot less than $6-8 grand.