NSW Existing Homes Real Estate Trial | Key Lessons

Home Energy Ratings

A home can be inspected, modelled and given an energy rating. Creating a system that people understand, trust and choose to use is a different challenge.

In Brief

Certified Energy participated in the NSW NatHERS for Existing Homes Real Estate Agent Trial between October and December 2025. The experience showed that the future success of existing-home energy ratings will depend on more than technical methodology. It will also require clear consumer value, a workable delivery model and a meaningful pathway from assessment to action.

Testing ratings within the property market

The NSW Real Estate Agent Trial explored how NatHERS for Existing Homes assessments could operate alongside established residential property workflows.

Certified Energy completed assessments across Maitland, Port Stephens, the Central Coast and the Northern Beaches. Unlike earlier trial streams that focused more closely on technical delivery and assessment methodology, this program examined how ratings could be introduced through real estate networks and offered to homeowners in an active property context.

As a field trial rather than a market-wide study, it provided operational insight rather than a prediction of national demand. Its value lay in showing what happens when an emerging technical system meets real homes, established industry practices and homeowners who may not yet understand the role of an energy rating.

The central lesson was clear: making a rating available does not, by itself, create a functioning home energy rating market.

Availability does not automatically create demand

Participation remained lower than anticipated, even though assessments were available at no cost to participating homeowners.

This suggests that price is only one part of the participation question. Homeowners must also understand why the assessment is relevant, what the result will tell them and how that information may support a decision about the property.

Real estate agents may be well placed to introduce energy information during a sale or leasing process. But the value of the rating needs to be simple enough to explain and meaningful enough for a homeowner to act on. Without that clarity, it can appear to be another property process rather than useful information about the home.

The customer pathway therefore needs to be developed with the same care as the technical methodology. People need to understand why the rating matters before they are asked to participate.

The question is not only whether an existing home can be rated. It is whether the rating can enter the property market in a form people understand, trust and act on.

A rating system is also a delivery system

An existing-home rating involves more than a short site inspection followed by an automatically generated certificate.

The complete workflow can include appointment coordination, travel, property data collection, floor-plan review, modelling, quality checks, report preparation and communication with the homeowner. Existing homes also vary widely in age, construction, documentation and complexity.

These are not secondary administrative details. Together, they influence whether assessments can be delivered consistently across metropolitan, regional and geographically dispersed housing markets.

Future delivery may require more flexible ways to separate local property data collection from accredited modelling and certification. Any such pathway would still need clear evidence requirements, appropriate training, quality assurance and professional oversight.

The objective should not simply be to make ratings faster. It should be to make them easier to access without weakening confidence in the result.

The rating must lead somewhere

Once a homeowner receives an energy rating, the next question is usually practical: what does this mean for the home, and what should happen next?

A certificate can summarise modelled performance, but its wider value lies in helping the homeowner understand where further investigation or improvement may be worthwhile. The rating becomes more meaningful when it can inform a renovation discussion, an upgrade plan or a longer-term property decision.

It should not replace detailed retrofit design, costing or construction advice. It can, however, create a clearer starting point by connecting the current condition of the dwelling with possible future action.

For broader adoption, homeowners need to see the assessment as more than a score. They need to understand how the information can support a decision they may already be considering.

What the trial revealed

The NSW Real Estate Agent Trial showed that the next phase of existing-home energy ratings is not only a technical project.

For the system to become useful at scale, a rating must be technically credible, practically deliverable and visibly relevant to the homeowner. Weakness in any one of those areas can limit the value of the whole process.

The long-term opportunity is not simply to issue more certificates. It is to make the energy performance of existing homes easier to understand and to help households use that information when deciding what comes next.