Whole-home generator demand grows for Houston luxury buyers

Last month’s derecho knocked out power to Richard Holmes’ Memorial neighborhood for seven days — but for less than a minute at his 13,200 square-foot home.  

While hundreds of thousands of CenterPoint customers in Harris County lost power during the windstorm, Holmes’ hulking 100-kilowatt, whole-home generator automatically kicked in and within seconds restored power to his $12.75 million estate. 

“It goes dark, and then you’re like, ‘God, please let the generator work!’” Holmes said with a smile. “You do a quick prayer, and then magically, ‘Let there be light!’” 

Holmes is among a growing number of affluent Houston homeowners who are investing tens of thousands of dollars in whole-home generators to keep their power humming during the region’s increasingly common extreme weather. 

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The number of luxury Houston homes sold with a generator increased sevenfold from 2018 to 2023, according to Houston Association of Realtors, which defines a “luxury” home as one that sells for more than $1 million. HAR started tracking homes with installed generators — partial or whole-home — after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Overall, the number of homes sold at any price with a generator has tripled since 2018, according to HAR.

“During COVID, we had so many people moving to Houston from other states, and they had heard about Harvey, and every time they wanted to know, ‘Is there a generator?’” said Realtor Dee Dee Guggenheim Howes, who specializes in luxury homes for real estate firm Compass. “They really were concerned about the natural disasters.”

That concern grew exponentially after the 2021 Texas freeze, she said. The brutal winter storm, blamed in the deaths of more than 200, nearly crashed the Texas power grid, leaving millions in the state without power during several days of record cold. 

In the weeks since the May 16 derecho, home mechanicals firms such as John Moore Services have had a flurry of calls from customers racing to protect their homes from power outages as the region enters hurricane season.

“My wife will tell you that I haven’t been home before 10 p.m., and I’ve worked the last two weekends, Saturday and Sunday, straight,” said Rich Gillette, a sales manager with John Moore.

But unlike portable generators, which can power areas of a home or just essential appliances, whole-home generators do just what their name suggests. 

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They typically are powered via a gas line and can automatically start when the system detects an outage, so homeowners don’t have to venture out during a storm to manually start the unit or to buy fuel.

But the convenience and the sense of security provided by whole-home generators isn’t cheap. At prices ranging from $13,000 to $40,000 — depending on their generating capacity — they are a major investment, even for well-heeled homeowners. 

“It’s very much a convenience tax; do you want to have to leave your house or sit in it when it’s 90 degrees and worry about all the groceries and all the expensive stuff, or do you want to go on about your life as normal?” said Greg Gilbert of Mackey Services, a Dickinson mechanicals company serving the Houston region.

Holmes, the Memorial homeowner, began to consider such a question 15 years ago when Hurricane Ike left his house without power for 21 days. 

“It was brutal,” Holmes recalled. “For us, we really wanted the personal safety and security that backup power can provide.” He and his wife also wanted to ensure they could still work from home and keep their dogs safe during an outage, he said.

Whole-home generators can be much larger but still quieter than portable units. From the inside of an expansive home, the noise often isn’t noticeable.

Douglas Elliman Realtor Gigi Huang said that while showing another luxury west Houston home shortly after the May windstorm, she didn’t realize a huge generator had been keeping the lights on the entire time. “It was fine, I had all the lights on and the AC was blowing,” Huang recalled.

She estimated that about half of buyers of luxury homes ask to view properties with installed generators, or at least those where one can be added.  

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Sharon Ballas, a Realtor with Greenwood King Properties, said many affluent buyers are starting to expect a generator as they would a pool or an elevator.

Houston homebuilder Charles Chapman of Corinthian Contracting said he now includes at least a 48-kW whole-home generator in all of the speculative mansions he builds in the Memorial Villages area.

“It’s become a requirement,” he said. “When you’re dealing with someone that has $5 million-plus they can put on a home, they’re discerning.” 

But beyond the perceived luxury of having a whole-home generator, the peace of mind one provides can be very real. After having lived in one home connected to such a unit, west Houston homeowner Parin Shah said he doesn’t think he wants to live without one. Now Shah hopes the whole-home generator installed at a property he has on the market for $6 million will be a powerful yet comforting selling point.

“What we find is that it’s getting hotter in the summer, there’s more rain, there’s more hurricanes, we had that tornado-derecho,” Shah said. “So having a place that has power … that can withstand some of the climate issues is going to be pretty beneficial moving forward.”