New Appraisal Law Requires Lenders to Factor In Solar Panels and Energy Efficiency Starting March 2026

The new Getting Renewable and Energy Efficient Neighborhoods Appraisals Act of 2025 (the GREEN Appraisals Act) is designed to fix a long-standing issue in the housing market: energy-efficient homes often don’t get the credit they deserve during appraisal. Basically, if you’ve invested in solar panels, high-efficiency insulation, or a heat pump, this bill aims to make sure that investment actually boosts your home’s value when you go to sell or refinance with a federally backed loan (like FHA, VA, Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac loans).

The Energy Report Card for Your Home

Starting March 1, 2026, if you’re applying for one of these “covered loans,” your lender has to tell you that you have the right to provide an “energy report” for the appraiser to review. This report, which can be something like a HERS rating or the Department of Energy's Home Energy Score, details your home’s energy features, estimated cost savings, and any renewable energy generation. Think of it as a detailed energy report card for your house. The bill is clear: if you consent, the creditor must send that report to the appraiser before they start their work.

What Appraisers Must Do Differently

This is where the rubber meets the road. Current appraisal methods sometimes ignore or undervalue energy efficiency, which is frustrating if you’ve spent thousands making your home greener. Under the GREEN Appraisals Act, a qualified appraiser who receives an energy report must take that information into account. This means they have to consider things like your estimated energy savings and how your solar array affects market value. To be considered “qualified,” appraisers must complete a specific 7-hour continuing education course on using these energy reports. Crucially, the bill also states that an appraisal cannot be rejected just because it factored in energy report data.

Who Benefits and What’s the Catch?

If you’ve got a modern, energy-efficient home, this is good news. It standardizes the process, giving you a better chance of getting a higher valuation that reflects your lower utility bills and smaller carbon footprint. It also benefits consumers by requiring creditors to provide a copy of the energy report to the borrower for free upon request. This adds a layer of transparency to the valuation process that wasn't consistently there before.

The challenge lies in the implementation. The federal agencies involved (like FHA and FHFA) have to work together to create the official guidance for creditors and appraisers. While the bill mandates that they create the rules for how the reports are shared and used, it specifically states that the guidance won’t tell appraisers exactly how much weight to give the energy information. This means the appraiser still has a lot of discretion. For example, Appraiser A might decide that $500 in annual energy savings is worth $10,000 in home value, while Appraiser B might only value it at $2,000. While the data must be considered, the final interpretation of its financial impact is left up to the individual appraiser, which could lead to inconsistent valuations in the short term.