I'm still amazed at how many people are unaware of solar as a reasonable alternative to whatever their status quo is. I've got neighbors who just think Solar is a luxury that doesn't have much short or long term value. Sunrun spends an outrageous amount on lead-gen, affiliates, inside sales, and other functions. Tesla just assumes interested leads who do basic research on Google will stumble upon their offering with little fuss. It'll be interesting to see how the race to the bottom pricing affects the industry in the long-term.
Did you try to get the $100 back? I was told and have also read about others who were told that you can get the $100 back if your deposit was in good faith and the project got dropped for some reason.
As a finance person I feel the industry has terrible messaging. They keep talking about break even but that's the wrong way to look at it. It should be like any other investment- return on investment. When someone buys a 5% muni they don't say in 20 years I'll break even- they look at the income generated (along with other factors). When you buy a solar system you should look at how much you earn off of your investment every year (as long as you plan on staying for a while). In my case it is 14% tax free per year, which is untouchable with the given risk I took on. It's one off the best investments you can make.
That is a regional thing. Here we have 1:1 net metering, no on/off peak and a utility that hates reliability, not ratepayers...