Western Researchers Awarded $309,000 Grant from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to Study the Impact of Energy Efficiency on Housing Prices

Western Washington University faculty members Sharon Shewmake, Reid Dorsey-Palmateer and Phil Thompson have secured a two-year, $309,304 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study the impact of energy efficiency on local housing prices.

The researchers are partnering with the Building Performance Center and local real estate agents to enter homes on the market, calculate a home’s expected annual energy usage, and test whether more efficient homes sell for a premium. Previous work has focused on only the most efficient homes, but this new data will add perspective on how upgrading the energy efficiency of a less efficient home affects its market price.

The researchers believe their work will provide useful information to buyers and sellers of homes as well as their real estate agents, in addition to better informing individuals considering the value of energy efficiency investments for their homes.  

The project will study homes in Whatcom and Skagit counties. The researchers will need to reach out to sellers of homes in these areas, mainly by working with local real estate agents.  Involvement with real estate agents in these counties is thus a crucial component.

“We’re really excited about collecting this information. This new source of data will provide cutting-edge evidence of the impact of energy efficiency on housing prices,” said Shewmake.  

All three researchers are faculty members in Western Washington University’s Department of Economics. Shewmake and Dorsey-Palmateer are also permanent faculty members in Western’s Institute for Energy Studies (IES), while Thompson is also an affiliated faculty member of both IES and Western’s Huxley College of the Environment. This research is being funded through the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Energy and Environment program, which makes grants to advance our understanding of the economic, environmental, security and policy tradeoffs of low- and no-carbon resources and technologies.

For more information on the grant or this research, contact Western Washington University Assistant Professor of Economics Sharon Shewmake at (360) 659-4892 or sharon.shewmake@wwu.edu.