Home buyers will pay substantially more for sustainable houses with demand for energy-efficient features rising.

The Domain Sustainability in Property report says properties with eco-friendly attributes such as solar and double glazing are also selling 4% faster on average and are attracting 17% more buyer interest. It says across most capital cities, roughly half of houses have green features, except Sydney, where only 38.7% did, while Canberra had the highest level of 67.2%. Environmentally efficient houses sold for 14.5% (about $112,000) more than houses without those features while for units the difference was 11.7% ($70,000).

Domain head of research and economics, Dr Nicola Powell says Regional Australia is leading the way in terms of buyers paying more for homes with environmentally efficient features. “Across the combined regionals an environmentally efficient house fetches 20.9% more than a non-environmentally efficient one and a unit is 30.8% more,” she says. Powell says this is almost double what buyers pay in capital cities.

Buyers in Melbourne pay the largest price premium of 28.8% for a house and 22% for a unit, followed by Sydney (23.1% and 11.7%), Perth (17% and 14.6%), Brisbane (16.2% and 10.7%) and Adelaide (10.7% and 8%). Powell says investing in sustainable features could pay handsomely for vendors as demand for green homes rises further.