Barclays is working with TV guru Phil Spencer to give home owners some £2,000 to make selected energy-efficiency improvements to their properties.
The bank’s Greener Home Reward scheme offers eligible residential mortgage customers up to £2,000 - no additional lending is required and all eligible new and existing Barclays UK residential mortgage customers can sign up. Customers must register for the cash reward online and then make and pay for a selected home energy efficiency-related improvement.
Customers can choose to install an air-source heat pump, double or triple glazed windows, solar panels, or home insulation, amongst other enhancements.
The announcement comes as a landmark study by Barclays and polling firm Ipsos of nearly 3,000 homeowners reveals widely held misconceptions around the cost and inconvenience of installing energy efficiency-related modifications are among the issues holding homeowners back from making retrofitting upgrades to their homes.
The research findings show the many homeowners overestimate the cost of energy efficiency-related improvements, with the largest discrepancy found to be the anticipated price of loft and roof pitch insulation, which respondents thought was more than two and half times more expensive than homeowners actually paid on average (£3,371 vs £1,213).
The cost of A-rated double/triple-glazed windows was also significantly overestimated, with respondents predicting it could cost a third (33 per cent) more than homeowners paid on average (estimated cost £8,166 vs actual £6,125).
The findings also suggest that owners misjudge retrofitting disruption. The data also showed that homeowners think the installation of some modifications will take longer than the time works actually take to complete, which could be particularly off-putting to hybrid and homeworkers who want to minimise disruption.
The most significant misconception was the length of time required to install solar panels, which were overestimated by 45 per cent of respondents. Homeowners also considered that A-rated double or triple-glazed windows took over 22 per cent longer to install than in reality.
And the research also revealed that modifications could boost house prices. Nearly one in two homeowners agreed they are willing to pay a premium for properties that have already undergone key energy efficiency-related retrofitting modifications.
When thinking about their own home, homeowners said they could be willing to pay around £23,000 more sum total for the same sized property with all of these four key energy efficiency measures installed, which represents a near six per cent uplift based on the average house price of those surveyed.
This figure climbs to £30,000 among homeowners with a house worth between £500,000 and £900,000, demonstrating the potential returns that retrofitting might be able to offer.
Barclays has partnered with Phil Spencer to provide insight to homeowners.
He says: “Having worked in property for more than 20 years, there has never been greater interest in retrofitting than there is today. Energy efficiency is a key consideration for house-hunters so properties with these types of modifications are in huge demand.”
“As Barclays’ research highlights, there are common misconceptions around the cost and disruption of retrofitting a home. I know that, when done properly, energy efficiency modifications can be transformative, resulting in energy savings and making your home more attractive to would-be buyers in the future.”
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