Energy efficiency played a major role when buyers decided what kind of home they wanted in 2014, but buyers were also much less likely to consider major environmental investments to be important.

The National Association of Realtors recently used two reports, “2014 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers” and the “2015 Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends,” to gauge buyer attitudes on eco-friendly features. These reports collected information from 6,572 surveys collected from buyers who purchased a home between July 2013 and June 2014.

Nine percent of buyers who purchased a newly built home said one of the main reasons for doing so was the energy efficient or environmentally friendly features included in the home.

Heating and cooling costs played the largest role in a buyer’s perception of the home, with 86 percent considering this factor to be important in their home search. Thirty-six percent said it was very important, while 50 percent said it was somewhat important.

Buyers also considered energy efficiency to be important in other areas as well, with 68 percent considering efficient appliances to be important in their home search and 66 percent considering the efficiency of the lighting to be important. Forty-five percent said energy efficient appliances were somewhat important, while 23 percent said they were very important. Forty-four percent considered efficient lighting to be somewhat important and 22 percent considered it very important.

Other features played a less important role in the buyers’ home search. Forty-seven percent considered environmentally friendly community features to be important, while 53 percent considered this aspect to be unimportant. Only 46 percent considered landscaping for energy conservation to be important, while 54 percent thought it was not important.

The presence of solar panels was the least important green consideration among buyers. Eighty-nine percent said this was not an important part of their home selection, while 9 percent said it was somewhat important that their home have this feature. Only 2 percent said it was very important.

The importance of green features or energy efficiency was relatively unchanged across age groups. Ten percent of buyers ages 34 or younger said they bought a new home for environmental or efficiency reasons. Nine percent of buyers between the ages of 35 and 49 bought a home for this reason, and the same share of buyers between the ages of 60 and 68 gave this reason.

Older buyers were more likely to consider heating and cooling costs to be a very important part of their home purchase. Forty percent of buyers between the ages of 60 and 68 and 39 percent of buyers between the ages of 50 and 59 considered these costs to be very important. Buyers ages 34 and younger were the least likely to consider these costs to be very important, with only 34 percent having this opinion.

Buyers between the ages of 60 and 68 were also the most likely to consider energy efficient appliances to be very important at 27 percent, while 26 percent of those between the ages of 50 and 59 also considered this feature to be very important. Only 18 percent of buyers ages 34 and younger considered efficiency appliances to be very important.

Twenty-five percent of both the 50-59 age group and 60-68 age group said energy efficient lighting was very important. Nineteen percent of the 34 and younger age group and 22 percent of the 35-49 age group said efficient lighting was very important.

Thirteen percent of buyers between the ages of 60 and 68 considered landscaping for energy conservation to be very important. This share declined steadily among younger age groups, with only 7 percent of buyers ages 34 and under considering it very important.

Younger buyers were more likely to take commuting costs into consideration when finding a home. Thirty-nine percent said this was a very important part of their home search, as did 36 percent of buyers between the ages of 35 and 49. Only 32 percent of buyers between the ages of 50 and 59 and 19 percent of those between the ages of 60 and 68 considered commuting costs to be a very important factor.

The share of those considering the less popular environmental features to be very important was relatively even among the different generations. Eleven percent of both the 35-49 age group and 60-68 age group considered environmentally friendly community features to be very important, along with 10 percent of the 50-59 group and 9 percent of the 34 and younger age group.

Only 1 percent of buyers ages 34 and under thought having solar panels installed on the home was a very important consideration. For all of the older groups, this share stood at 2 percent.