If you’re getting ready to put your home on the market, you’ve undoubtedly heard that it needs to be in the best possible shape to attract legit buyers. But what else can you do to make it stand out?
The answer: Turn it into a smart home.
Not only do smart home features make your place seem updated and well-taken-care-of, but they can also make your home sell quicker and fetch you a higher sales price. “According to a 2017 survey conducted by t3 sixty, a brokerage consulting firm for residential real estate, 40 percent of realtors believe smart homes sell faster, regardless of price,” said Cornerstone Home Lending. “This smart home selling potential has increased 33 percent in the past year.”
If you’re ready to invest a few bucks into some Smart Home features, here are the ones that should give you the biggest bang for your buck.
Home security
T3 Sixty research confirms that home security and video “is the fastest growing sector in smart home technology,” said Coldwell Banker in its Smart Home Study. “The T3 Sixty survey shows that 36.4 percent of homebuyers ask most often about smart home security. Video feeds allow homeowners to easily check in on their home, pets and family while traveling or at work. It is also the Smart Home feature that consumers respond to most in marketing.
This exploding segment of the Smart Home market accounted for just under $2.6 billion in sales in 2015, according to Statista, and more than $6.7 billion as of 2017. “It is expected to surpass $20 billion by 2021.”
Smart appliances
“Smart appliances win big in the ROI game, expected to bump the average ROI up 11 percent more than standard appliances,” they said. “In the 2017 Concept Community study conducted by MFE, 18.2 percent of people listed appliances as the smart home feature with the highest ROI.”
Smart lighting
Automated lighting was noted by more than eight percent of participants in the survey as having high ROI when it comes to smart home features. This feature is especially salient when real estate agents point out not just the ease of use of the lighting system, but also the potential savings. Energy.gov says that “LED lights use at least 75% less energy, and last 25 times longer, than incandescent lighting.”
Smart thermostats
This is an easy “entry point” into smart tech for home, and one that can have a great ROI. It is also another item that real estate agents should be pointing out to buyers,” said New York magazine’s Intelligencer. “The core of the smart home is about the service, right? So you can show how it will change and affect your life and how you interact with your house. If I walk into four houses in the same neighborhood, and one has a Nest thermostat and the agent has educated me that it could save 10 to 12 percent in my heating and cooling, that’s going to stick out in my mind. While the other houses maybe I’m going to forget about. The thing with having a smart home is, you have to work with a listing agent that can convey those benefits because if you don’t, it might as well not even be there — it just doesn’t matter.”
According to a Nest study, the company’s smart thermostat saved consumers on average 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling,” said Security Sales and Integration. “Based on typical energy costs, that translates to an average savings of $131 to $145 a year.”
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