Banner
How Much Is Your Home Worth?   Request a Free Instant Valuation  

The Rightmove study looked at 15 million homes across England and Wales, and found:

             59% of properties hold a D, E, F or G rating

             The potential to reduce this percentage to 11% if recommended improvements are followed

             Up to 11 million homes in England and Wales don’t have an EPC rating

Landlords must find cost-effective solutions that improve energy-efficiency

We know most landlords would love to make their rental property more energy-efficient, but it isn’t always easy to do so. Nor is it always affordable. Landlords must make financial decisions, and sometimes, the cost of carrying out home improvements outweigh the benefits, and this means many landlords will not make a range of changes.

What changes can you make to your rental property?

Thankfully, there are affordable ways to improve rental property, offering an improved outcome for landlords and tenants. Rightmove have also provided a number of ways for landlords to boost their EPC rating, and some of these options are affordable.

             Install solar panels – While this is the most commonly recommended step, it is expensive, and will run into thousands of pounds

             Switching to low energy lighting – This is also a highly recommended option, but is far more affordable, the average cost is less than £40

             Insulating the hot water cylinder is a sensible option, and can be arranged at around £20

             Draught-proofing single glaze windows costs around £100

             Adding or improving loft insulation is sensible, and the average cost is £223

             Upgrading your heating control is sensible, but more expensive, with an average cost of £400

Rightmove’s director of property data Tim Bannister says: “It’s encouraging to see that there are some energy efficiency improvements that can cost less than £100, so it’s definitely worth checking your EPC if your home has one to see if there are small changes you could make to try and improve your rating. The bigger challenge is for those homes with much lower ratings that will cost a substantial amount of money to improve. There are a number of homeowners who don’t feel an urgent need to make changes now unless it makes a big difference to the cost of their household bills or if it’s going to make their home more attractive to a potential buyer if they’re planning to sell.”

Tim concluded by saying; “It’s early days with some lenders now starting to introduce green mortgages as incentives, but homeowners need to be better informed that how green your home is will become increasingly important as we aim to move towards a net zero society, and they need more help to understand why making improvements are so important for the long term.”

If you are a local landlord, and you would like to discuss how best to improve your rental property to meet the needs of tenants, please get in touch.

As local agents in Newton-le-Willows, we are keen to support landlords in the area as best we can. We offer an extensive range of property management services.

If you would like to arrange a rental property valuation, or discuss your next activity in the lettings market, please call Fraser Reeves on 01925 222555.