You find the one: great neighborhood, updated kitchen, the right price. Your offer is accepted, you’re mentally arranging furniture—and then the home inspection report lands.
Suddenly you’re reading about ventilation issues, aging HVAC equipment, moisture in the crawlspace, or possible radon concerns. None of this showed up in the listing photos, but it all shows up now—when you’re emotionally invested and on a tight timeline.
Across the U.S., 16.3% of homes under contract were canceled in December 2025—the highest December rate since tracking began—with 70% of agents citing inspection issues as the top reason. The issue isn’t just what the inspector finds—it’s when those findings hit the transaction.
The question isn’t “Does this home have performance issues?” Every home does, in some form. The real question is: Will you understand them early, when they can be managed, or late, when they feel like a crisis?
Most listings tell you how a home looks. Home performance tells you how it lives—day in, day out.
It’s the difference between:
- Staring at a $400 utility bill vs. staying within budget
- Sleeping well vs. worrying about indoor air quality
- Riding out a storm comfortably vs. scrambling during a power outage
As Casey Murphy, Pearl’s SVP of Quality & Standards, explains: “Home performance is about creating spaces that work for you, not against you. Building science has solutions to improve your quality of life—Pearl SCORE™ helps you identify and prioritize them.”
Pearl SCORE™ measures the house based on five critical performance pillars that affect everyday life in a home:
Safety – Indoor air quality, ventilation, radon and carbon monoxide protection, moisture control, and basic detection systems.
Comfort – Even temperatures, draft control, humidity balance, and how “livable” the home feels across seasons.
Operations – How efficiently the big systems (HVAC, water heating, appliances, envelope) work together and how that translates into monthly bills.
Resilience – How well the home is prepared for local risks like storms, flooding, wildfires, or extreme heat and cold.
Energy – Solar, battery storage, EV readiness, and smart controls that shape how independent and future‑ready the home is.
Pearl SCORE™ doesn't replace your inspection. It makes it more productive by surfacing performance conversations early, when they can be managed—not when they crash the deal. And it’s not just about managing downside risks - when you understand how a home actually performs from the start, you can often discover hidden benefits—lower operating costs, better comfort, healthier air—that weren’t visible in the listing or fully appreciated by the seller.
Want to learn more about how to understand a home’s energy costs? Read our blog about it here.
A Redfin analysis found homebuyers canceled 16.3% of contracts in Dec 2025—the highest December rate on record—with 70% of agents citing inspection issues as the top reason. At the same time, Bankrate reports homeowners face $21,400/year in "hidden costs" like utilities and maintenance, with 42% citing unexpected expenses.
Put simply:
Late information creates stress. When performance issues surface only at inspection, negotiations become emotional and adversarial.
Early information creates options. When you understand how a home performs before you make an offer—or before you fall in love—you can compare, budget, and negotiate calmly.
Pearl SCORE™ is designed to move these conversations upstream: from “inspection bombshell” to “structured discovery” early in your search. It doesn’t replace your home inspection—it helps you go into it prepared, with realistic expectations already set.
Pearl SCORE™ is the national standard for rating home performance, allowing any buyer to look up any single‑family home and see how it scores across the five critical performance pillars: Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, and Energy.
Here’s how to use it in your search.
Go to the Home Performance Registry and enter the address. You'll see the overall Pearl SCORE™ (1 to 1000 scale) plus pillar summaries like "Typical" or "Good" for Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, and Energy.
What it helps uncover:
Safety → Basic health factors (ventilation, radon protection)
Comfort → Temperature consistency, humidity control
Operations → Items that factor into monthly costs (HVAC/appliances)
Resilience → Risks for your area (storm/flood preparedness)
Energy → Solar readiness, utility independence
Pearl SCORE™ reveals what listings and photos can't show—how well a home actually performs. Homes that have been claimed and verified by their owners will have even greater data accuracy.
Two homes might have the same list price and square footage, but very different performance profiles.
For example:
Home A: Average finishes, strong Operations and Resilience → lower ongoing costs, better protection in bad weather.
Home B: Beautiful finishes, weak Operations and Resilience → higher bills, more vulnerability to storms or heat waves.
Pearl SCORE™ helps you see these tradeoffs early, so you’re choosing with eyes open instead of being surprised after inspections and utility bills arrive.
Once you’ve seen a home’s performance profile, you can ask targeted questions instead of generic ones:
“I see the Operations pillar is lower—when was the HVAC and water heater last replaced?”
“The Safety pillar suggests ventilation could be improved—has this home ever been tested for radon or had air quality upgrades?”
“This area is prone to heavy rain—what drainage or sump pump systems are in place?”
You’re not trying to become a building‑science expert. You’re using a simple framework to focus on what matters most to you.
If a home you like has performance gaps, that doesn't mean you should walk away. It means you can make informed decisions:
Budget for upgrades you'll want to make
Understand what you're taking on before you commit
Prioritize which improvements matter most to you and your timeline
Because you've set expectations early, the inspection becomes confirmation—not a shock that derails the deal at the last minute.
Buying a home will probably always be emotional. But the worst stress often comes from not knowing what you’re really getting into until the inspection report drops.
Home performance is already affecting deals, monthly budgets, and long‑term comfort—the market just hasn’t had a common language for it. Pearl SCORE™ gives you that language, and it does it early enough that you can actually use it.
Before you make one of the biggest decisions of your life:
Look up the home’s Pearl SCORE™.
See how it performs across Safety, Comfort, Operations, Resilience, and Energy.
Decide what tradeoffs you’re willing to make—on your terms, not under inspection‑day pressure.
That’s the difference between hoping a home will live the way you want and knowing what to expect before you sign.
*Pearl Home Performance Registry™ is currently in beta and available to all single-family homes while Pearl continues to refine data and expand features.
