So I looked up Mosaic loan trust on fidelity. It appears there collateralizing the loans into bonds, and there all investment grade rated. It appears most people pay there solar loans?
Hasty assessment---three reasons a homeowner should buy solar panels for their home
- Thread starter GON
- Start date
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
A few notes. Mosaic pays the solar installer $30k USD for a $20k USD system. Mosiac charges a hidden $20k USD loan origination fee. Mosaic is able to book a $20k USD profit the minute the loan is executed. Mosaic then packages the loans into bonds, I don't know the structure or the collateralization of the bonds. nor do I know if Mosaic is also charging the bondholders a fee for servicing the loans.
Subprime auto lenders typically collateralize bonds at investment grade. And then, an event happens, and the bonds are no longer investment grade. FDIC backed Cole Taylor bank had that happen with their subprime auto lending arm, Reliance Acceptance. A fasinating read on how the stockholders of Cole Taylor lost everything, the bondholders of Mercury finance lost near everything, yet the officers of Cole Taylor walked away owning the bank. Amazing:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-02-15-fi-29061-story.html
https://www.chicagotribune.com/1996/06/14/cole-taylor-feud-fizzles-out/
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/135/480/2503292/
But I can tell you this, the senior leaders of Mosaic are all taking home seven figures per year and have zero risk personally. Nice work if you can get it.
JHZR2
Staff member
Power prices are going up. I own properties that are serviced by two different utilities. The smaller more local utility has better prices. The multi-state, publicly traded and bigger name utility at the other one charges excessively more even just for being connected.
I love the concept of offset. The attempt to go zero to me is stupid.
Anyone that puts panels on an old roof is… stupid. That said, it’s only a $500-ish job to remove and install (a friend just did it).
No need to try to belittle folks or make dumb comments about #3. Solar can be a really good investment in places with reasonable sun and high power prices. It’s not just for virtue signaling.
I love the concept of offset. The attempt to go zero to me is stupid.
Anyone that puts panels on an old roof is… stupid. That said, it’s only a $500-ish job to remove and install (a friend just did it).
No need to try to belittle folks or make dumb comments about #3. Solar can be a really good investment in places with reasonable sun and high power prices. It’s not just for virtue signaling.
JHZR2
Staff member
My in laws installed major solar because they’re about 49c/kwh in the Virgin Islands. It was a very fast payback and they’re loving it. They’ve survived through Irma and Maria. There were some that were on a shed roof that they uninstalled and reinstalled without help because they use enphase micro-inverters which are all plug and play.
Im pretty pleased with enphase although I had a consumption transformer fail, I was never out any productivity.
As long as a panel is in the micro inverters window, it doesn't care.
JHZR2
Staff member
I don’t know where your costing standards are coming from, but many kW of power moved hundreds or thousands of feet to keep a ground mount from being unsightly is a big cost, plus the cost of trenching, conduit, etc.
It’s not like a 120/240 12ga line from your house tot he garage.
Roofing best practices are now pretty well established. Use a reputable provider and they’ll last fine, even through category 5 hurricanes. From first hand experience.
JHZR2
Staff member
Sounds like a pretty stupid way to buy solar. And why due diligence and a reputable company is important.
For your hundreds of stories there are tens of thousands of good installs. My parents have one. My in laws have two. Go anywhere and you see panels, even in latitudes that it doesn’t make sense.
Why hundreds or thousands of feet? Why not 50 feet? Build a giant gazebo - put it on there?
The Utility owned power cable from the street to my house is not in conduit - just buried in the ground. Not the way i would do it given PVC conduit is cheap, but there cheaper I guess. Spec here is only 24 inches deep from the street. Mine was actually about 3 feet - I watched them dig it up (by hand).
You are in an area good for solar panels as your experience has shown.
Not sure if it was mentioned but what is the rate on the solar loan? I’m assuming you are assuming the seller’s terms?
330+ days of sunshine per year. And solar panels generate on cloudy days as well.
My solar project was the biggest no-brainer in the world. And I hate PG&E, so there's that.
I love rain, because it warshes down the panels...
JHZR2
Staff member
Maybe it is 50 feet. Maybe it is a lot more. A gazebo doesn’t have much practical roof space. Maybe a full parking spot pergola or similar.
If true dedicated mount, it’s big and ugly. Who wants to look at it 50 feet from their home?
Utilities do things that aren’t what would be done properly in a home. Look at the cable to the service entrance that the utility provides, versus the sec size for a 200A service, for example.
Our utility was in on talks with advagrid to buy out our little utility provider. Advagrids modus operandi is they buy out your utility and cut the maintenance budget, close the local branch, double everyone's power bill, give you the number to an answering machine incase there's any problems and that's all they do. About 23 of us got solar panels over the course of about 4 months in 2020 and advagrid didn't just walk away from the deal they ran. This is why they try to be sneaky when they buy out a utility.
One must SERIOUSLY sit down and consider if there is a prospect of them ever moving in the future. As almost a full 50% of the population lives in their home for only 6 to 10 years. You are then saddled with a solar system of unknown consequences when it comes to selling. Unless you, of course live an in area of 20+ cents kWh electric rates. Still, you do limit the buyers willing to take it on. I would never buy a home with panels. But that is me, I know others yet I dont know others that having no panels would make them not want the house.
You're talking about a PACE/HERO Loan. Different animal. A PACE loan isn't a loan just for solar. It could be for more efficient HVAC system or upgraded windows/doors. PACE loans are administered through the county tax office because the county funds are used in some fashion. Due to the use of county funds the loan payment is incorporated into the property tax bill and takes priority over mortgage liens.
Homeowner got in trouble because they didn't realize how these loans were structured.
https://aeclinic.org/aec-blog/2022/...ce-lending-for-energy-efficiency-improvements
Last edited:
There a passive solar trackers which using solar radiation will rotate the panels.
53 cents per Kw? Is that all the time or peak rates?
Thats the average effective rate if I were on a non solar time of day plan.
With tiering and penalties It can go higher.
PG&E now has peaks at .60-.69. Utterly ludicrous.
Last edited:
