Does installing solar panels raise my property tax bill on Long Island?

In most cases, no. New York's RPTL 487 exempts the added assessed value from a qualifying solar system from property taxes for 15 years, so Nassau and Suffolk homeowners generally don't see their tax bill climb just because an appraiser would value the house higher with panels installed. The exception is a municipality that formally opted out of the exemption by local law — that status can change, so it's worth a call to your town assessor's office before you sign a contract, not after.

How much more do homes with solar actually sell for on Long Island?

National data from Zillow and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory puts the resale increase at roughly 3–4% over a comparable home without solar, and Long Island's higher electric rates make that closer to the top of the range than the bottom. On a $650,000 Huntington or Babylon colonial, that's in the neighborhood of $20,000–$26,000, though the number moves with system size, age, and whether the buyer's lender treats the panels as owned real property or a third-party lease.

Does a leased or PPA solar system add the same resale value as an owned system?

No — leased systems and power purchase agreements typically add little or no measurable resale value, and can slow a sale down because the lease has to be qualified by the buyer or paid off by the seller before closing. Appraisers and mortgage underwriters generally only credit solar as a value-add when the system is owned outright or financed through a loan that leaves title with the homeowner, which is one of the main reasons cash purchases and solar loans have become more common than leases on Long Island.

Should I remove my solar panels before selling my Long Island house?

Almost never. Pulling a functioning, owned system off the roof before listing usually destroys value rather than protecting it — buyers are actively looking for PSEG-LI bill relief, and a bare roof with visible mounting hardware or old conduit runs raises more questions than it answers. The rare case for removal is a system near end-of-warranty life with a failing inverter that no longer produces a meaningful offset, where a straightforward disclosure is usually better than a sale-day surprise.

Does adding battery storage increase home value beyond the solar panels alone?

Early data suggests yes, particularly on Long Island where PSEG-LI's above-ground distribution network means storm-driven outages are common enough that buyers ask about backup power directly. A battery doesn't have the same body of resale-value research behind it yet that rooftop solar does, but appraisers are increasingly noting battery backup as a comparable feature the way they'd note a whole-house generator, which typically does carry a recognized value add in this market.

Incentives

How Much Does Solar Increase Home Value on Long Island?

Huntington Solar Co Published July 3, 2026

Long Island homes with an owned solar system tend to sell for roughly 3–4% more than comparable homes without one — but the county assessor generally can’t tax you on that increase, thanks to a New York exemption most homeowners have never heard of. The two facts sound contradictory until you understand that “value” means something different to a buyer’s appraiser than it does to a tax assessor.

What the research actually says about the resale increase

The most-cited number comes from a Zillow analysis of national listing language, which found homes advertising solar panels sold for about 4.1% more than otherwise-similar homes. A separate, more rigorous study out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which tracked actual sale prices rather than listing copy, found buyers paid roughly $4 per watt of installed solar capacity — meaning a typical 7 kW residential system added somewhere around $28,000 to the sale price in the markets studied.

Neither study was done specifically on Long Island, and that matters. Long Island’s PSEG-LI electric rates run higher than a lot of the country, and higher electric rates generally mean buyers assign more value to a system that’s already offsetting a $250–$400 monthly bill. A $650,000 colonial in Huntington or Babylon with a well-sized, owned system is a more plausible candidate for the top of that 3–4% range than a home in a market with cheaper power.

The math scales with the house, not just the system. On a $450,000 Suffolk County ranch, a 4% increase lands around $18,000; on an $850,000 Nassau colonial near Cold Spring Harbor’s higher-assessed streets, the same percentage is closer to $34,000. That’s part of why the per-watt figure from the Berkeley Lab study and the percentage figure from Zillow don’t always agree exactly on a given house — one scales with system size, the other scales with home price, and a real Long Island sale usually lands somewhere between the two estimates rather than exactly on either.

The tax bill and the sale price are answering two different questions — one is what the town says your house is worth for taxation, the other is what a buyer’s appraiser says it’s worth on the open market. Solar moves one of those and, in most of Nassau and Suffolk, leaves the other alone.

Why your assessment usually doesn’t move

New York’s Real Property Tax Law section 487 exempts the increase in assessed value attributable to a qualifying solar energy system from property taxes for 15 years from the date of installation. In practice, that means a Cold Spring Harbor or Northport homeowner who adds an 8 kW system that an appraiser might value at $30,000 higher generally sees no corresponding jump in their county or school tax assessment during that window.

The exemption isn’t automatic everywhere. Municipalities had the option to opt out of RPTL 487 by local law, and opt-out status has shifted over time in different Long Island towns as boards revisit the policy. Before signing a contract, it’s worth a direct call to your town’s assessor’s office to confirm current status — the same office that issues your building permit can usually tell you in one phone call, and it’s a five-minute check against a 15-year assumption.

Claiming the exemption isn’t automatic either. Homeowners generally need to file Form RP-487 with the local assessor within the same filing window as any other exemption application, and the paperwork should reference the specific system size and installation date documented in your interconnection agreement with PSEG-LI. Skipping this step doesn’t cost you the market-value increase at resale, but it does mean paying tax on an assessment increase you were entitled to avoid — worth confirming with your installer at the time of the Town of Huntington’s Building Division or Town of Babylon’s Building Department final inspection, since that’s the same paperwork trail the assessor’s office will want to see.

What buyers on Long Island are actually paying for

Appraisers don’t have a line item for “solar panels” the way they do for a garage or a finished basement — solar gets folded into the broader comparable-sales approach, weighed alongside the system’s age, the remaining length of its warranty, and whether the buyer’s lender will recognize it as real property. A few things specifically move the needle here:

Ownership structure. A paid-off or loan-financed system that transfers with the deed reads as an asset. A leased system or a power purchase agreement reads as an obligation the buyer has to qualify for or the seller has to pay off — Fannie Mae and most local lenders treat these very differently, and it’s the single biggest reason two visually identical rooftop arrays can have completely different effects on a closing.

Documented savings. A folder of 12 months of PSEG-LI bills showing the before-and-after production offset does more for a buyer’s confidence than the panels themselves. Homes that can show real bill history tend to move faster and closer to ask than ones where the buyer has to take the seller’s word for it.

Equipment and installation quality. Named-brand equipment — Qcells or REC modules, Enphase microinverters — with a transferable manufacturer warranty reassures a buyer’s inspector in a way generic or discontinued equipment doesn’t. Inspectors are also increasingly checking for code compliance details like NEC 690.12 rapid-shutdown compliance, since a system that would fail a re-inspection is a red flag at resale even if it’s been running fine for years.

Remaining warranty and system age. A five-year-old system with 20 years left on a 25-year panel warranty and a 10-year inverter warranty still in force reads very differently to an appraiser than a 14-year-old system approaching the end of its inverter’s service life. Buyers’ agents on Long Island have gotten used to asking for the original interconnection paperwork and warranty documents up front, not just a production app screenshot, so keeping that folder organized from day one saves a scramble at listing time.

What happens at appraisal and closing

Most residential appraisals on Long Island still use Fannie Mae’s standard forms, and solar doesn’t always get its own line item unless the appraiser specifically pulls comparable sales with similar systems — which is harder to do here than in solar-dense markets like Arizona or California simply because there are fewer directly comparable sales to draw from. That’s part of why documentation matters more than the panels themselves: a folder with the PSEG-LI interconnection agreement, the RP-487 filing, 12 months of utility bills, and equipment warranties gives an appraiser something concrete to point to instead of asking them to estimate value from a rooftop photo.

Lenders matter here too. A conventional buyer’s mortgage underwriter will generally recognize an owned system as part of the real property being financed, but a system still carrying a UCC-1 filing from a solar loan, or one under an active lease, can require a payoff, subordination, or lease-transfer step before closing — which is a title and timeline issue, not just a value issue. Sellers who clear this up before listing tend to close faster than ones who discover a lien search flags it mid-contract.

Where battery storage and system sizing fit in

A correctly sized system tends to hold its resale value better than an oversized one, mostly because buyers and appraisers alike respond to a system that visibly matches the house’s actual usage rather than one that looks bolted on for its own sake. Our install process sizes every system against a full year of PSEG-LI usage data specifically so the array a homeowner eventually sells with looks proportionate, not like an add-on chasing incentives.

Battery storage is a newer variable in the resale conversation, but Long Island’s exposure to storm-driven outages on PSEG-LI’s above-ground lines gives it a more concrete case here than in a lot of other markets — buyers are asking about backup power directly, not just efficiency. It doesn’t yet have the multi-decade body of appraisal research that rooftop panels do, but it’s being treated more and more like a generator upgrade: a recognized comparable feature rather than a novelty.

There’s also a simpler, less glamorous factor at play: a battery-backed system with automatic transfer switching removes one of the more common buyer objections during a showing, which is “what happens to the panels during an outage without one.” Systems without storage still shut down automatically per NEC 690.12 anti-islanding requirements whenever the grid goes down, which surprises buyers who assumed solar meant automatic backup power. Explaining that distinction clearly during a listing — and pairing it with a battery where the roof and budget support one — tends to head off a question that otherwise slows negotiations down.

How Solar Huntington approaches the resale question

Every proposal we build starts from the assumption that the homeowner might sell in five years just as easily as they might stay for twenty, which changes how we think about sizing, equipment selection, and paperwork. Residential solar installation here means an owned or loan-financed system by default, documentation of the RPTL 487 exemption filed with your town assessor at install, and equipment chosen for transferable warranties rather than the lowest sticker price. Full incentives breakdown covers how the federal tax credit and NYSERDA rebate factor into the up-front cost, and Long Island install case studies show what actual PSEG-LI bill offsets have looked like for homeowners in Huntington, Northport, and Cold Spring Harbor after their systems went live. If a future sale is part of your thinking now, say so on the first call — it’s a design input, not an afterthought.

Frequently asked

Does installing solar panels raise my property tax bill on Long Island?: In most cases, no. New York's RPTL 487 exempts the added assessed value from a qualifying solar system from property taxes for 15 years, so Nassau and Suffolk homeowners generally don't see their tax bill climb just because an appraiser would value the house higher with panels installed. The exception is a municipality that formally opted out of the exemption by local law — that status can change, so it's worth a call to your town assessor's office before you sign a contract, not after.
How much more do homes with solar actually sell for on Long Island?: National data from Zillow and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory puts the resale increase at roughly 3–4% over a comparable home without solar, and Long Island's higher electric rates make that closer to the top of the range than the bottom. On a $650,000 Huntington or Babylon colonial, that's in the neighborhood of $20,000–$26,000, though the number moves with system size, age, and whether the buyer's lender treats the panels as owned real property or a third-party lease.
Does a leased or PPA solar system add the same resale value as an owned system?: No — leased systems and power purchase agreements typically add little or no measurable resale value, and can slow a sale down because the lease has to be qualified by the buyer or paid off by the seller before closing. Appraisers and mortgage underwriters generally only credit solar as a value-add when the system is owned outright or financed through a loan that leaves title with the homeowner, which is one of the main reasons cash purchases and solar loans have become more common than leases on Long Island.
Should I remove my solar panels before selling my Long Island house?: Almost never. Pulling a functioning, owned system off the roof before listing usually destroys value rather than protecting it — buyers are actively looking for PSEG-LI bill relief, and a bare roof with visible mounting hardware or old conduit runs raises more questions than it answers. The rare case for removal is a system near end-of-warranty life with a failing inverter that no longer produces a meaningful offset, where a straightforward disclosure is usually better than a sale-day surprise.
Does adding battery storage increase home value beyond the solar panels alone?: Early data suggests yes, particularly on Long Island where PSEG-LI's above-ground distribution network means storm-driven outages are common enough that buyers ask about backup power directly. A battery doesn't have the same body of resale-value research behind it yet that rooftop solar does, but appraisers are increasingly noting battery backup as a comparable feature the way they'd note a whole-house generator, which typically does carry a recognized value add in this market.