The signed contract that dies at finance.
Residential solar lost both of its financing pillars inside a single year. Installers are being told to find alternatives. Home equity is the alternative most of their customers already have.
- The trigger
- The customer wants the system and cannot qualify for a solar loan, or the quoted rate makes the payback maths stop working.
- What it costs you
- A signed contract, plus the sales appointment, the site survey and the engineering design behind it. All of it spent before the decline.
- Typical system value
- $25,000 - $40,000
This is not a Barastone problem. It is a financing problem you inherited.
6% - 36%
Solar loan APR range
Many borrowers are quoted 13-25%.
Strategy framework v1.1, Part 4.2
30%
Residential solar tax credit, terminated
Ended for systems not installed by 31 December 2025 under the One Big Beautiful Bill. On a $30,000 system that is $9,000 of assumed savings removed, and the loan structures built around the credit went with it.
Public law; summarised in strategy framework v1.1, Part 4.2
30%+
Dealer-fee markups the CFPB flagged
Fees that can raise loan principal well above the system’s cash price.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, via strategy framework v1.1, Part 4.2
Run your own numbers.
What your business is losing at the financing step today, using your figures.
Dead-deal ledger
Your numbers
- Customers you could not help
- 60
- Revenue not booked
- $1,920,000
- Already spent winning them
- $24,000
Every one of those was a customer who wanted to go ahead. They had the equity and could not reach it, so the project did not happen. The last figure is what you spent finding that out.
Your customer pays cash. You get paid at closing.
A homeowner who settles on a Home Equity Agreement receives investment proceeds and pays for the installation outright. There is no dealer fee to discount against, no lender sitting between you and the job, and no financing contingency left in the contract.
PhotographyInstaller on a residential roof at golden hour, mid-work, panels partially laid - real crew, no stock-library gloss.
Your role ends at the introduction. Ours starts there.
Who carries what, line by line.
You
Your role begins and ends here.
- Introduce the homeowner
- Share Barastone-approved materials
- Use your tracked link or branded page
Barastone
Everything past the introduction.
- Application intake
- Property valuation
- Investment review and eligibility
- Consumer disclosures, state by state
- Closing and e-notary
- Funding
- Servicing for the full Investment Period
- Settlement at sale, refinance or term end
Nobody asks you to
The reason a trade business can do this at all.
- Fund any part of the agreement
- Carry balance-sheet exposure
- Take an application
- Collect, store or transmit homeowner financial data
- Make an eligibility or investment decision
- Negotiate terms with the homeowner
- Operate compliance or servicing infrastructure
Home improvement & renovation
Kitchen and bath remodelers, ADU builders, general contractors and home service franchises lose finished designs at the financing step. The equity is usually already there.
Real estate professionals
Agents and brokers sit across from equity-rich, cash-poor owners every week: the pre-sale renovation, the stay-or-sell conversation, the client who needs their equity working before the sign goes in the yard.
Mortgage & lending professionals
You already acquired the customer. A decline on a HELOC or a cash-out refinance sends them out of the branch and, often, out of the relationship.
Financial, wealth & insurance advisors
For most clients, home equity is the largest asset in the household and the only one the plan cannot reach. An introduction puts it to work without a sale.