Energy-efficiency details are missing from most home listings

A new study from the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative, co-sponsored by Pearl, finds that homebuyers care about energy efficiency but rarely see the data they need in listings. The gap could shape costs, comfort and resilience for millions of buyers deciding on one of life’s biggest purchases.

Why it matters: - Homebuyers are making major decisions without basic performance data that can affect monthly costs, comfort and safety. - The study suggests the housing market still focuses on photos and square footage while leaving out how a home actually performs. - Pearl is positioning its home-performance rating as a way to surface that missing information before buyers make an offer.

What happened: - The Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative released Home Buying in the Energy Transition, a 2026 study based on more than 1,000 recent homebuyers and more than 1,500 real estate agents. - The report was co-sponsored by Pearl, a home-performance ratings and standards company. - The research found that 84% of recent buyers said energy efficiency was very or moderately important to their home-buying decision. - Only about 8% of 2025 listings mentioned energy efficiency at all. - Roughly 25% of U.S. homes now have at least one major energy-efficient asset. - Just one in five buyers found energy-efficiency details in all the listings they considered.

The details: - The study says buyers want to understand not just how a home looks, but how it functions day to day. - The missing information includes what a home costs to run, how comfortable and safe it is, and how it handles storms and outages. - Pearl says its Pearl SCORE™ rates every single-family home in the U.S. on a 1,000-point scale. - Pearl SCORE covers five performance pillars: Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience and Energy. - The rating combines those pillars into one score designed to make home performance easier to compare. - Buyers can look up a single-family home’s Pearl SCORE at pearlscore.com.

Between the lines: - The findings point to an information gap that could weaken price discovery in the housing market, especially for buyers trying to estimate long-term ownership costs. - Pearl is using the research to argue that home performance should be part of the search process, not just an after-the-fact repair issue. - Robin LeBaron, Pearl co-founder and president, said buyers want information on energy costs, health, comfort and durability, and that Pearl exists to make home performance visible up front.

What's next: - Pearl is likely to keep promoting Pearl SCORE as a tool for buyers, homeowners and real estate professionals. - The study gives the company a data-backed case for broader disclosure of home-performance features in listings. - As more homes add efficiency upgrades, pressure may grow for the market to make those features easier to find and compare.

The bottom line: - Buyers care about energy efficiency, but listings still hide most of the details they need to judge a home’s real operating cost and performance.