Smart homes for sale can jump off the screen on property listing sites. A property with smart technology can convince appraisers to value your property more and encourage interested buyers to bid higher. Learn about the makings of a smart home and the upgrades to focus on before selling.
What Makes a Smart Home
A smart home has at least three network-connected devices for remotely controlling, automating and optimizing essential functions, including temperature, entertainment, lighting, safety and security. You must use your phone, tablet, computer or a separate system within the property to control your smart home features.
Why Technology Sells
Smart technology’s robust demand renders residential properties more marketable. The U.S. smart home market’s estimated revenue was $34.7 billion in 2023. Experts project that by 2028, smart tech’s household penetration rate will reach 75.1%. In other words, three in every four U.S. residences will soon have smart devices.
Americans gravitate toward smart home features due to convenience and energy efficiency. Being able to remotely control, automate and optimize how your property works is a compelling proposition.
If you want to attract more eyeballs to your house and fetch higher offers when you list it, marketing it as a smart home is a clever strategy.
5 Home Features to "Smarten Up" Before Selling
"Souping" up your house before it hits the market can boost its value. Still, you should be selective about which home features to upgrade to get the most bang.
The smart objects buyers view as fixtures are the only ones you can use as bargaining chips. You can’t use any smart appliances you intend to bring when you move — like your speaker, TV or refrigerator — to bump up your asking price.
What home features should be the focus of smart upgrades before selling? Consider these five.
1. Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) System
Smart HVAC has networked components and IoT-enabled sensors. Such a system can wirelessly send and receive information from the gateway. It lets you analyze its performance at a granular level. Smart HVAC can alert you when something’s wrong, signaling the need to check for dirty filters, leaky ducts or exterior clearance issues.
Moreover, a smart HVAC system has a smart thermostat. It can learn your temperature preferences and automatically adjust heating or cooling operations to save energy when you’re away or asleep.
2. Lights
Smart lighting fixtures can interact with their environments and talk to other smart objects. You can control them at the touch of a button on a remote, from your mobile device or with voice commands via a smart display or digital voice assistant.
Smart light features vary by model. Some auto-adjust their brightness based on ambient light levels, while others offer various color and warmth options.
3. Doors
Upgrading specific components, such as the doorbell and garage door opener, makes more financial sense than spending thousands on a smart door.
A smart doorbell lets you answer visitors remotely. It has surveillance functionality to show who’s at the door and stores recordings internally or on the cloud. Some models use artificial intelligence (AI) to distinguish faces from objects to eliminate false positives.
A smart garage door opener helps keep your home secure no matter where you are. You can control it from abroad to keep intruders at bay. It can also generate health reports, which help troubleshoot specific errors.
4. Smoke Detectors
Smart smoke detectors can sense solid and liquid aerosols in the property like their traditional counterparts. In addition, they connect to your home network and notify you about a fire through its companion app when you’re not around.
5. Alarm System
A smart alarm system enables you to build your own network of security devices and gives you autonomy over it. It allows for self-reliance as you may not want to engage a home monitoring company.
Be a Smart Home Seller
Smart tech is desirable, so the above upgrades justify their costs. However, smart homes can’t always sell themselves. Whether you use an experienced real estate agent or not, put a premium on marketing to ensure your listing's “smart” selling points are front and center.
