The Smartest Smart Home: Five Things to Buy Now that Will Help Sell your 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, 40 percent of realtors believe smart homes sell faster, regardless of price. 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

Home security and video is the fastest growing sector in smart home technology in a Smart Home Study. 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 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. In a 2017 study, 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. Smart thermostats saved consumers on average 10% to 12% on heating and 15% on cooling. Based on typical energy costs, that translates to an average savings of $131 to $145 a year.