Walkable skylights are wonderful additions to any commercial or residential space. As with any architectural feature, however, many people are curious whether installing one is a smart financial choice. Here’s what you need to know about factors that affect the return on investment for a walkable skylight.

Increased Residential Home Value

While it’s difficult to assign hard numbers to the return you’ll see on a walkable skylight, one thing is clear. If you’re looking to sell your home at any point, a walkable skylight can provide financial benefits in several key ways:

• Help the Home Sell Faster

Natural light helps a home feel visually attractive, appealing, and inviting. Natural light can also highlight and enhance features like hardwood floors, stone countertops, or tilework. The skylight itself also adds internal and external architectural interest to the floor plan.

All these features can help a home go under contract faster.

Not having your home sit on the market for months on end can have real dollars-and-cents benefits. For example, if you’re renting or buying another place while your home is on the market, a quick sale can minimize how many months you’re double paying.

It also limits the carrying costs associated with the home. This includes things like property taxes and utilities.

(This is to say nothing of the more intangible stress and inconvenience of having your home sit on the market!)

• Serve as Marketable Energy Savings

If you’ve installed a walkable skylight into your home, you can list that as an attractive selling point. Walkable skylights can reduce your energy bill by minimizing your dependence on artificial lights.

The longer you have the skylight, the more you can benefit from the compounded effect of these energy savings. While you’re still the homeowner, this can save you money on your monthly utility bill, offsetting a portion of the expense to install the skylight.

If you’re selling, you can use that feature to differentiate your home and land a quicker sale. (If you’re lucky, the improved look and feel of your home could even help spark a bidding war. In this market, it’s even likely. In 2021, a shocking 24 percent of home sellers received at least four offers!)

• Promote Intangible Benefits

Whether someone is consciously perceiving it or not, homes that incorporate a lot of natural light tend to just feel better. They seem larger, more open, brighter, and airier.

Incorporating a walkable skylight into your home can help imbue your space with all the benefits of natural light. This ranges from better sleep to increased productivity to an increased sense of well-being.

While you’re living in the home, you can take advantage of these benefits. Then, when you’re looking to sell, potential buyers will sense that positive atmosphere in the home.

To showcase, the benefits of your walkable skylight, try to coordinate your home’s open house with bright, clear, sunny days.

How to Maximize the Value of a Walkable Skylight

Walkable skylights can be incorporated into a new build, or they can be part of a remodel or renovation plan. However, if you’re looking to maximize the financial return on your skylight, work them into plans for a new build.

You can still see financial benefits when they’re added after the fact, but because they’re more expensive to install into an existing home, you will lose out on some potential profits.

Skylight Additions: Dramatic Before and After Pictures

There are many benefits of skylights, not the least of which is the sheer beauty of natural light in a residential or commercial space. Check out these three real-world examples of rooms before and after the addition of a skylight.

Note: These are images of traditional skylights, while Jockimo focuses on walkable skylights. The aesthetic advantages and dramatic visual differences, however, remain the same.

• Bedroom, St. Louis, June, 12:00 p.m., Intermittent Clouds

(Photo courtesy of http://www.eneref.org/reports/eneref_builder_residential_roofwindow.pdf.)

• Stairwell, Reno, June, 11:00 a.m., Sunny

(Photo courtesy of http://www.eneref.org/reports/eneref_builder_residential_roofwindow.pdf.)

• Bathroom, Dallas, June, 11:00 a.m., Sunny

(Photo courtesy of http://www.eneref.org/reports/eneref_builder_residential_roofwindow.pdf.)

Maximize Walkable Skylight Value by Being Strategic

The amount of return you see on a walkable skylight depends on how effectively it’s been designed and how strategically it’s been placed in a space. (Want more information? Learn about successfully designing a custom walkable skylight here.)

We’re Jockimo, a custom glass manufacturing company. We specialize in architectural glass features, including walkable skylights, and we’d love to answer any questions you have! Get the strategic expertise you need for your maximum return on investment. Contact us today!