How about that idea…… ditch the stock and invest in your home! Energy efficiency is becoming more and more important for homeowners in Dallas. So it comes as no surprise that people all over the country are finding that an investment in their home is the best decision they can make. So how about investing in a home energy retrofit? Besides the obvious – a much more comfortable home and less strain on the environment – it also appears that an energy upgrades have a better ROI than Microsoft stock these days.
Below is an article written by Anne Maertens of EnergySavy.com and Anne was kind enough to give us permission to re-post her article.
Times are tough. If you’ve been unemployed in the last few years, your savings have probably dwindled as you’ve struggled to make ends meet. If you haven’t lost your job, then you’ve hopefully been saving and investing small amounts. But the stock market has been a mess over the last five years, and interest rates for CD’s and treasury bonds are tiny. If you’re fortunate enough to have money to invest, where should you put your money to guarantee a good return?
Here’s a new investment idea for you: a home energy retrofit. Make your home more energy efficient through low-tech and cost-effective measures like insulation, furnace replacement and sealing your heating ducts.Huh? Why put money into your house with home prices going the way they’ve been. Well, this isn’t about increasing the resale value of your home: though you can expect that it will at least help. All you really need is to live in your home for five years for this to work in your favor due to the lower utility bills you’ll see every month. To illustrate the impact of doing a home energy retrofit as an investment, here’s a simplified example. Let’s say five years ago, a homeowner in Dallas named James was deciding between buying $10,000 of Microsoft stock as an investment or spending that same amount of money on a home energy retrofit to reduce his utility bills. What would have been the better five-year investment? The Microsoft stock worth $10,000 in June 2005 would have turned into just $10,700 five years later (a return of 7 percent over five years), including the increase in stock price and the dividends paid out over the course of the five years. But it turns out that the home energy retrofit would have been the much better investment. If James had spent $10,000 on a retrofit for his 2,000 square foot home in Dallas, including installing a more efficient heating system, efficient lighting, and attic and wall insulation, the investment would have returned 36 percent over five years, in terms of lower utility bills and increased resale value: even assuming that he only gets back half of the value of his investment at the end. So… Retrofitting your home is a better investment than the stock market. And that doesn’t even consider the fact that you’ll be more comfortable in your home and you’ll help reduce our country’s dependence on foreign energy sources.If you’re interested in learning more about how to do a home energy retrofit, who to do it, and how to get as much of it paid for by your utility and the government, estimate your savings at EnergySavvy.com.
I guess this says it all. Have an appetite for a home energy retrofit now? Contact the experts at EGC Custom Homes.