Homebuyer Attitudes Towards High-Performing Home Features: Findings and Recommendations to Bridge the Gap Between the High-Performing Homes Community and Homebuyers

If high-performing homes have superior benefits, and if in surveys people say that they want high-performing features, why aren’t homebuyers demanding that their homes have these upgrades?

The gap comes from a lack of understanding between homebuyers and the high-performing homes community. High-performing home program professionals (e.g. sponsors and implementers of state, municipal, and utility residential clean energy programs) need to remember “people do not engage with us for our reasons, they engage with us for their reasons.”

In other words, in order to have home buyers prioritize buying homes that are full of highperforming and energy efficient upgrades, high-performing program professionals need to interact with buyers and agents in a way that resonates with them, and not necessarily us.

We can do this by listening to what homebuyers are looking for, and then helping them realize how the full range of benefits that comes with living in a home with high-performing features can meet their needs.

Key findings include:

• Homeowners tend to have an overall low understanding of energy efficiency in the home. However, they are interested in learning more when its benefits are presented to them.
• Once people have experienced an issue that high-performing features can alleviate, they care strongly about those features in a home.
• Quality, cost, and affordability are key talking points for the benefits of high-performing homes.
• Homeowners want to see a range of information that includes both technical details and descriptive messaging in materials for marketing highperforming homes.

Research Authors

• Pamela Brookstein, Elevate
• Emma Baumgart, Elevate