How to Use Smart Home to Build Your Advantage
Learn how staying sharp on smart home can help you build your brand
When 79% of agents say that buyers are interested in smart home tech and 54% of sellers say they would install it to make their home sell faster – you know that smart home is a trend worth understanding.
Being able to recognize smart home tech in a listing and guiding a buyer on how it can change the way they live in their home sets you apart. Smart home tech is no longer just a high-end upgrade. It’s now a must-have in markets as diverse as Boston and Des Moines.
“If a buyer under 35 walks into a home without a smart thermostat they’re walking out,” says Jim Hibbs, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Mid-America Group in Des Moises, Iowa. “If a home doesn’t have smart upgrades you’re really limiting the prospective buyer pool. Smart Home tech also makes the whole home feel updated.”
The data supports this. Last year 71% of Americans said they wanted a move-in ready home and nearly half of that group said a property needed smart home tech to be considered move-in ready.
As consumer demand for smart home tech has soared so has the number of companies claiming to offer the best products and services. Wading through all of the info can be daunting. So we’ve compiled some resources to help you stay up-to-date.
Stay in the Smart Home Know
The Coldwell Banker Blue Matter blog tracks all things related to smart home and real estate. It has a full library of videos and short articles with tips, data and advice from our network on how to use smart home to market yourself and your listings. CNET is another excellent source for smart home information. They’re famous for their in-depth and honest product reviews, their best of lists are a great quick resource for product recommendations.
Help Your Clients “Smart Stage” Their Homes
Another way to use smart home to your advantage is the smart home staging kit. The kit provides home sellers with an easy way to “smart stage” (upgrading a home with smart home tech) before putting it on the market. The kit provides you with a marketing edge. Preliminary data shows that homes designated and marked as a “smart home” on coldwellbanker.com are receiving two times more conversions than the site average.
“Putting in smart home tech helps a property stand-out against the competition,” says Ricardo Rodriguez, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Boston, Massachusetts. “Smart Home gives a listing an edge and can allow you to position it at a more advantageous price point.”
The smart home staging kit includes smart home tech from the most popular product categories: temperature, lighting, security, safety and voice control. The products all work together wirelessly and can be controlled by voice through the Echo Dot. As an added plus installing these products means that the home meets the Coldwell Banker / CNET Smart Home Definition.
Not only does installing these products give a home a marketing edge it also has lasting lifestyle benefits for the new buyer. The Nest Learning Thermostats helps self-regulate a home’s temperature and has long-term energy saving and money benefits for the owner. The August Smart Lock allows you to lock or unlock your home via your smart phone from anywhere in the world all while monitoring who is coming and going through your Nest Security Camera. And installing Lutron Caséta means never coming home to a dark home!
Coldwell Banker agents and their clients have a further edge when it comes to smart staging. The Smart Home Staging kit can be purchased at a discount by going here. Please note a CB Exchange Log-In is required to view this page and receive your discount.
Get Smart Home Certified
Coldwell Banker is the only real estate brand with an official smart home curriculum and certification. The self-paced course is available to all Coldwell Banker agents; upon completion your agent profile is automatically updated with a smart home icon showcasing your expertise to potential buyers and sellers.
You Can Still be an Early Adopter
Smart Home technology adoption may have grown by 33% among consumers in the last year, but very few agents are using smart home technology confidently and competently as a business differentiator. Agents that do leverage smart home technology in their business are still the early adopters. That means that even now, three years after Coldwell Banker launched our initiative highlighting the intersection of smart home and real estate, agents using smart home technology to market themselves and their businesses are likely the only ones in their area doing it.
That’s exactly what a new research report, “Smart Homes: An Emerging Real Estate Opportunity” from industry research firm, T3 Sixty, finds.
VR is a Standard Listing Practice
In a competitive real estate market, every edge counts. And the reality is, sometimes standard photos just aren’t enough. That’s why Coldwell Banker is at the vanguard of a movement towards virtual reality, a cutting edge technology that can transport the viewer to a different environment. In other words, you could virtually visit a home from the comfort of your own couch. Coldwell Banker sat down with Samsung, a leader in VR technology, to talk virtual reality and it’s application in the real estate industry.
If you would like to know what Coldwell Banker agents have access to, head to coldwellbanker.com/join and explore the possibilities of moving your business to Coldwell Banker.
If you’re already affiliated with Coldwell Banker and want to learn more about our Smart Home initiative, visit CB Exchange and search “Smart Home.”
Athena Snow
Senior Manager, Public Relations & Giving for Coldwell Banker. Grew up in Sarasota and attended college at Western Carolina University. Athena wanted to wake up in that city that doesn’t sleep so headed to Madison Avenue to start her marketing career. She has been with this awesome brand for more than 15 years and can be found generating buzz about CB in every way possible. Athena helps to grow the brand’s position as the most storied real estate company within the industry and has led many high-profile endeavors; she was at the forefront of the brand’s pioneering smart home campaign, raised $6 million in two years to build 130 Habitat for Humanity homes, and led the Homes for Dogs program in partnership with Adopt-a-Pet.com that resulted in tens-of-thousands of dogs finding their furever home. She currently leads the CB Supports St. Jude program, which encourages the Coldwell Banker network’s 96,000+ real estate agents to make donations to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital for every real estate transaction they represent. In her spare time, you can find her either digging up a new area in her yard for another flower bed or planning her next travel adventure. She's the proud mom of three cats Jolene, Ziggy and Lucy.
