Caine and Pacifici: Energy Performance Is Becoming Part of How Homes Are Valued

Caine and Pacifici: Energy Performance Is Becoming Part of How Homes Are Valued

23000 Series — Scope & Inclusion Criteria

The Australian Property Network’s (APN’s) 23000 Series is the attributed opinion layer of the APN Codex. It presents the recorded perspective of an identified practitioner, academic or subject-matter expert whose observations bear on active node conditions, without constituting APN’s own analytical position. This perspective is drawn from a 25-minute podcast conversation released in September 2026 alongside The Efficiency Edge, a joint report by Cotality and the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA). APN carries it because it is the real estate profession’s own account of how energy performance is entering the sale and lease of homes, at the point when disclosure and rental standards are moving from policy into practice. The speakers’ statements are presented as their own attributed analysis, not as verified fact.

Attributed Perspective — Jacob Caine, President, Real Estate Institute of Australia, and Chiara Pacifici, Councillor, Real Estate Institute of Western Australia

Caine attributes the new attention to several developments arriving together. He points to more frequent damaging weather events, Australia’s commitment to reduce emissions, the adoption of a minimum 7-star energy rating for new homes in most states and territories, and a sharp rise in the cost of energy. Historically, he says, Australians have had little reason to think about how their homes perform: the climate is largely temperate, and heating and cooling have been cheap. That is changing as running costs rise, and he links the latest increases to fuel and energy prices driven by the conflict in the Middle East.

“Perhaps the most expensive home isn’t the one that costs a lot to get into, but is the one that you can’t afford to live in, that you can’t afford to run.”

Jacob Caine, on why energy performance matters to buyers and renters.

Pacifici, a buyer’s advocate in Perth, describes what buyers respond to. Most do not ask for energy efficiency by name, she says, but they recognise quality. The features the market understands best are north-facing living areas, which bring natural light and winter warmth, and double glazing, which improves thermal performance and acoustics together. Insulation is a quality feature too: many homes built before minimum energy standards were introduced in the early 2000s have none in their roofs, walls or floors. For existing homes she sees insulation as the usual first upgrade, followed by rooftop solar and battery storage. Heating and cooling, and hot water, are the two largest uses of energy in a typical home, and appliance star ratings make the efficiency of replacement systems easy to compare. In Western Australia, she says, the cost is in cooling: air conditioners run almost continuously through the peak of summer, and for longer stretches than before.

On regulation, Caine describes a patchwork of state rules. Only the ACT has legislated disclosure of a home’s energy rating, and it has done so for many years. Victoria will require minimum energy efficiency standards for rental homes from March 2027, phased in over time. New South Wales is consulting on minimum standards for rentals and considering disclosure at sale or lease, which he expects could be legislated by the end of the year.

On value, the speakers say higher-rated homes command a premium. Pacifici cites ACT research, drawing on a quarter-century of mandatory disclosure, that found a price uplift of about 2.4% for a 6-star home and up to 9.4% for a 7-star home. In the speakers’ account, that premium pays for the upfront investment. Ratings for homes assessed when they were built can be found online, Pacifici adds, so agents have every means to obtain them.

Both treat the change as an opportunity for the profession rather than a regulatory burden. Caine argues that an agent’s expertise already lies in identifying the features that make a property more valuable, and that thermal performance is one more of them. For property managers, he says, rental standards will bring upgrades across a rent roll, and with them higher rents, lower insurance costs and a more valuable rent roll; for sales agents, higher prices. He describes the agent as the translator between a buyer’s sense that a home feels better and the reasons it does. Pacifici adds that the industry is built on trust, and that explaining a home’s performance builds the confidence on which buyers act. Both expect agents who build this knowledge early to outperform those who do not, and point to training being developed by the real estate institutes, including a national program with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Source: Jacob Caine, President, Real Estate Institute of Australia, and Chiara Pacifici, councillor, Real Estate Institute of Western Australia, and founder, Community West Real Estate. Podcast — Cotality, Beyond the Buildings Australia, “Why efficient homes save more than energy”, hosted by Tim Lawless, research director, Cotality, September 2026, about 25 minutes. Close paraphrase throughout, with the direct quotation as marked; the recording is the authoritative record of exact wording. The conversation accompanies The Efficiency Edge (Cotality and REIA, 23 September 2026). Disclosure: the REIA is co-author of the report discussed, and Pacifici acted for the buyers in one of its case studies, a sale in Mount Hawthorn, Western Australia.

APN Clinical Reframing

The conversation contains claims of three kinds. Statements about the published record — the adoption of the 7-star standard, energy costs, disclosure and rental rules, the price premium for higher ratings and household energy use — are tested in the companion Sustainability & ESG claim test. It finds that the standards, cost, disclosure and rental-rule claims hold, with differences between states, and that the premium figures come from a 2018 study of ACT sales from 2011 to 2016; later estimates, from the ACT Government’s own 2023 review and from Cotality’s national analysis, are smaller. Observations from practice, about what buyers ask for and how agents present homes, are the speakers’ own and are not tested. Statements about the commercial opportunity for agents describe the profession’s interest and are presented as the speakers’ view.

The speakers’ descriptions of sharply rising energy costs and a large commercial opportunity are paraphrased in APN’s register. The measured question behind the conversation is how much of a home’s value its energy performance now explains. The evidence supports a premium for higher ratings that is real but modest, a few per cent for a well-rated established home, measured where ratings have been disclosed. Whether it widens as disclosure spreads beyond the ACT is the open question.

This perspective is an exploration candidate for Sustainability & Environmental Policies (21360) and Inflation (21220). No figure or characterisation in this piece may be treated as an APN-certified position for any 21000, 22000 or 24000 Series node.

Disclaimer

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The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this text belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Australian Property Network (APN).

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Property values and market conditions can go down as well as up. Before making any property or investment decisions, you must conduct your own thorough research and seek independent professional advice tailored to your specific circumstances.