@Russell Brazil If you guys are so rich, you should be able to afford a few fancy solar panels! Solar doesn't pencil out for everyone but increasingly for many people it does.
Actually, if you don't have any solar panels in your neighborhood it's possible that your HOA doesn't allow it. The California mandate is one thing, but the reality of the rest of the country is that it's more common for solar to be prohibited by utilities or HOA's than it is for them to be mandated. With this in mind, if you're on the side of property rights you might be more concerned with the many places that still have rules preventing individuals from doing what they want with their roof and making that investment if they want.
Even if your HOA allows solar, I would respectfully argue that your immediate neighborhood is not big enough to give insight into an actual market. Zoom out to an area large enough to support business competition such as Maryland statewide and the data tells us the market has dramatically increased solar capacity by an average of 95% year over year for the last 17 years running, including 20,000% growth from 2006-2011. That kind of growth, a market that literally doubles or triples itself every year, signifies a high demand market in my book. Many of those 10 of the 20 richest counties in America you speak of are over the border in Virginia, where solar is expected to triple in capacity in the next 5 years https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/virginia/a.... You can't tell me you're not in a high demand market for solar, or that consumers don't want it when the market is booming, excluding your small neighborhood apparently, which I'd be curious to know if your HOA actually prevents it.
Do you have any data supporting solar reducing property value? That would go in the face of an often referenced study the appraisal institute conducted by tracking actual sales data from which they calculated that homes with solar sell for an average premium of $15k. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/sola...
Think about it: assuming house A and house B are identical other than one has solar and one does not (and you can't even see the solar because the panels are black and blend in to the roof), if house A has $2k/yr. electric bill, and house B has $0/yr. electric bill plus earns the owner $200/yr. selling SREC's back to the utility, you're telling me you'd pick house A? Most people would pick the house that makes money over the house that costs money.
$10-11/month savings doesn't sound like a lot but when you calculate the IRR over 10 years including conservative rate increases the return is 10.3%.(https://solarpowerrocks.com/maryland/). In my book that's a great return for a zero risk investment that cost $0 out of pocket thanks to the low interest $0 down loan. As a real estate investor I love any time I can make an investment with 100% other peoples money, and profit $15k over 20years plus add an instant $15k value in my home, with $0 DOWN. Mind you these are Maryland numbers, CA numbers are much better, Maryland is a good market but it's ranked 13th in the country. You can say it's not a lot of money but for some people it is and it's money they wouldn't have otherwise had, which plenty of people like.
You state you're not for or against solar, so I wonder why you are making negative comments about solar that I don't believe can be supported with data such as consumers don't want it, solar reduces property values, or that it's not cost effective. In my experience it is actually a product that many people want, which has been proven to raise home value and is often cashflow positive day one with no out of pocket cost. The alternative (not going solar and continuing to pay your utility bill) provides nothing but a negative return. Makes sense to me and a lot of other people. Rich people mostly actually, historically, but even that's changing now. Thanks to reduced pricing and new financing options the market is finally opening up to people who aren't rich, but up until now solar has been a rich persons item so it's odd to hear you and @BJ Dante claim rich people don't want it or don't buy it, it's simply not true, trust me I would know I've been selling tons of solar to mostly rich people for 15 years. I've sat in some of the richest people out there's living rooms and after 5 minutes of looking into it they cut me a check, to them it's a no brainer.
You stated you don't think the savings are enough to move the needle but fact is, the needle is moving! The solar industry is growing 17 times faster than the US economy:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/24/news/economy/solar....
@BJ Dante
