Preferences on financing mechanisms for thermal retrofit measures in multi-owner buildings: A discrete choice experiment with landlords and owner-occupiers in France

Thermal retrofit of existing buildings is a major challenge for the energy transition. Retrofitting multi-owner buildings is particularly challenging because it involves multiple co-owners with heterogeneous preferences and incentives to renovate. We conduct a discrete choice experiment on thermal retrofit measures with landlords and owner-occupiers of condominiums in multi-owner buildings in France. Attributes include financing mechanisms (equity, private loan, and collective loan), transferability of loans (i.e. loans, which may be transferred to the next owner in case the condominium is sold), heating cost savings (absolute and relative to other co-owners in the same building), and investment costs. Results from estimating mixed logit models suggest that participants prefer on average equity financing over loan financing and collective loans over private loans. Aversion to loan financing appears to be partly due to debt aversion. The results also suggest that for loan financing, co-owners prefer transferable loans. Further, co-owners do not like retrofit measures that result in higher heating cost savings for other co-owners in the same building than for themselves. Thus, asymmetric distribution of benefits of thermal retrofit measures may impede acceptability of such measures in multi-owner buildings. Finally, the findings provide no evidence for a landlord-tenant split incentives problem in our sample.