Financing, ownership and contracts
How you pay for a solar system can matter as much as what it costs. The same roof and the same equipment can be bought for cash, financed with a solar loan, leased for a monthly payment, or covered by a power purchase agreement that bills you per kilowatt-hour. Each path moves money, risk and paperwork to a different party, and each one leaves something behind when you sell the house.
The pages in this hub read those paths at the contract level. The lease, buy or PPA guide sets out the basic comparison. The dealer-fee guide shows how a low advertised loan rate can hide a markup inside the amount financed, and how to recompute the real cost of credit from the numbers in your own loan disclosure. The leased-solar sale guide walks the transfer, buyout and fixture-filing steps that a home sale triggers when the panels belong to a leasing company.
Two rules run through every page. Nothing here is personal financial, tax or legal advice; the worked examples use stated inputs so you can swap in your own. And no page assumes the federal residential clean energy credit, which ended for systems placed in service after December 31, 2025. Where a financing product was built around that credit, the page says so plainly and shows what changes without it. Broader home-finance context, such as home equity borrowing, sits on EnergyBS and is linked where it helps.
Every guide in this section
Lease, buy, or PPA: who owns the value on your roof
Buying usually costs least over the life of a system; a lease or PPA trades a larger lifetime total for no upfront cost and someone else's maintenance. How the three structures split cost, risk and the roof, with the escalator arithmetic worked to year 25.
Solar loan dealer fees: how to find the markup inside a low APR
A low solar loan rate often comes with a dealer fee added to the amount you borrow. How to find it, price it, and recompute the real rate against the cash price.
Selling a house with leased solar panels: transfer, buyout and the UCC-1 filing
Leased panels belong to the leasing company, so a home sale means transferring the contract to a qualified buyer, buying the system out, or prepaying it. How each path works, and what the buyer's lender will check.
PACE financing for solar: what the lien does to your tax bill, your sale and your refinance
PACE solar financing is repaid on the property tax bill under a lien that usually outranks the mortgage. What the 2026 federal rule changed, and what it costs.
Will a solar loan block your refinance? The lien, the ratio and the payoff rule
A solar loan rarely blocks a refinance, but it changes the file: its payment counts as debt, a recorded lien can need subordination, and Fannie Mae allows a payoff.
Do solar panels increase home value? What the sales studies actually measured
Owned solar has added value in each major US sales study reviewed here, about $4 per watt in Berkeley Lab's 3,951-home analysis, but the premium faded fast with system age and leased panels add nothing to an appraisal. Here is what each study counted and what it means after the federal credit.
Should you buy out your solar lease? How the price compares with what you still owe
A buyout swaps the remaining lease payments for one price plus the upkeep you take over. The break-even arithmetic, with every input printed, and the questions that fix the number.
Solar loan or cash: the effective rate that decides it
Paying cash or financing solar comes down to comparing the loan's effective rate on the cash price with a ladder of what your money could earn elsewhere.
Community solar vs rooftop solar: which saves more over 20 years?
A 20-year comparison of a community solar subscription and an owned 8 kW rooftop system at the $2.95 per watt DOE benchmark, with every input printed, a break-even credit value, and a dated table of what five state programs actually guarantee subscribers.
Solar on a rental property: who keeps the savings, and what rent premium repays the panels?
Rental solar worked three ways on the 8 kW DOE benchmark system ($23,600, no federal credit): tenant-paid bills, landlord bill-back and utilities in rent, with the break-even rent premium, the tenant's share, and a dated table of Texas, New York and California submetering rules.
How to choose between these financing guides
The right guide depends on where you are in the contract. Before you sign, the question is price: the dealer-fee guide shows how to recompute a loan's real cost, and the lease, buy or PPA comparison sets out what each path leaves you owning. During a lease, the decision is whether to keep paying or own the system, which the buyout guide prices with every input printed. At sale, the leased-solar sale guide walks through transfer, buyout and the recorded filing.
Three public rules recur across these guides. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's August 2024 issue spotlight on solar financing reported that dealer fees typically run 10 to 30 percent of the cash price, that some lenders' fees raise the amount financed 30 percent or more above it, and that stated APRs of 1 to 7 percent often leave those fees out (consumerfinance.gov, archived publication, checked October 22, 2026). Fannie Mae's Selling Guide, section B2-3-04 in the version dated October 8, 2025, says leased panels are excluded from appraised value and that lease payments generally count in the buyer's debt-to-income ratio. And under UCC section 9-513, a secured party must file a termination statement for consumer goods within one month after the obligation ends, or 20 days after an authenticated demand (law.cornell.edu, model text, checked October 22, 2026).
No page here recommends a lender, a lessor or an installer, and none assumes the federal residential credit, which ended for property placed in service after 2025. For home-equity borrowing as an alternative, EnergyBS has a HELOC versus solar loan guide.
| Stage | Decision | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Comparing offers | Which ownership path and what each leaves behind | Lease, buy or PPA |
| Reading a loan | What the real cost of credit is after fees | Solar loan dealer fees |
| Mid-lease | Whether to buy the system out | Solar lease buyout |
| Selling the house | How the contract and lien move with the sale | Selling with leased solar |
| Installer failed | Who services the loan or lease next | If your solar company closes |