Has a client ever asked you questions about smart-home tech that you couldn’t answer? Are your clients expressing interest in buying homes with smart gadgets or asking for advice in upgrading? Do you want to become a smart-home expert? We’ve got the scoop for you.
Introducing a new recurring weekly column on Inman called “Smart-home tech for agents,” where hosts Brandon Doyle, Doyle Real Estate Team with RE/MAX Results, and Colton Pratt, project manager, walk through specific smart-home products, showcasing their capabilities and reviewing pros and cons, so that when your clients ask, you’ll be the expert.
There are so many options out there for smart-home tech, it can be overwhelming and cause questions like:
- Where do I start?
- What am I supposed to buy for my home?
- What do I need?
The benefits of smart-home technology include convenience, comfort, energy savings, safety and security. Integrating smart-home tech into a home is a lot easier than you think, but it’s important that homeowners choose wisely early on as it will affect which products they’re able to add to their system later on down the line.
Getting started
Although many consumers will opt for Wi-Fi devices so that they do not need to purchase a hub, we discourage this as it will slow down your router, consume more power and run slower than Z-Wave and Zigbee alternatives.
That said, having a strong Wi-Fi connection is still important, so it is worth investing in a quality router instead of using the one from your internet service provider.
Stay tuned next week, we’ll go in-depth on products and discuss comparisons, basic installation and helpful automations that homeowners can set up in their homes.
Brandon Doyle is a Realtor at Doyle Real Estate Team — Re/Max Results in Minneapolis and co-author of Mindset, Methods & Metrics – Winning as a Modern Real Estate Agent. You can follow him on Twitter.
