Selling home, should I leave or take hubitat

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1

House is up for sale and have decided to leave hubitat and most devices.
Are there any suggestions about what process should be followed?
I intend to have a discussion with the new owner to determine if they want the "smart home". I might be willing to give them an introduction

I expect I can revert back but am concerned on how long it may take me.
If I leave it, I am concerned about a smooth transition to the new owner.

Any thoughts, suggestions or experience about taking or not taking.
By the way, I have only z-wave devices which include switches, door lock, garage door opener, and thermostats.

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I should also mention that I use Siri with my iphone (and shortcuts).
All of these will be removed from my iphone.
I also use Alexa and expect to only add a new Alexa app to give the new owner basic Alexa functionality for switches.

4

They don't have to use the "smarts" in their smart devices, they will work manually if you unplug the hub (unless you have disabled physical actuation). Other than that, if they want the smart home features, you may want to create a house account and transfer the home to that account, then give the credentials to the new owners. You would need to give them a walk through, unless you write a basic user manual. I've seen folks who used the basic manual and it worked just as good as the walk through.

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5

If I didn't swap out stuff I wanted to keep, I'd at least make sure it's all wired to work dumb when offline (in my case, I'd have to reconnect a few wires here & there to do that).

Then I'd at least leave a record for each that ID's brand, model, protocol (ZW, ZB, etc), and firmware version. If the new owners want to take it from there, then they at least know what they have to deal with. And if not, it all functions fine dumb anyway.

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When I sell my house, I will leave it as it is. I consider home automation an improvement (involving a lot of work), and thus an increase in value. If the new owners don’t want/need/like it, they can remove it. I’ve created extensive documentation and will pass it along. I’ll also provide training if requested.

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7

I just moved about 18 months ago and pulled everything. I didn't want to buy all new devices for new home and it's only any value to new homeowners if they are into Home Automation AND they want to use a comparable system and want to setup house there same way. Plus, I have no desire to be considered Home Automation support after I sell the house and the homeowners would probably expect that. The worst case would be someone with no HA experience who decides to pursue since the devices are there.

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8

I did the same.

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9

Man, removing all those switches...ugh.
The GE/Jasco switches function fine as ordinary toggle switches.
PLUS, the toggles light up! A feature found on $4.95 (I made that up) dumb switches!

10

I think you should ask a real estate agent that knows your market.

In some neighborhoods, it’s probably a selling point for the average buyer.

In others, it might end up driving the buyer insane. The last thing you want is to drive away potential buyers that would consider a smart home as a neutral or even negative feature of a house.

In general once you list the house, many fixtures like light switches are implicitly considered part of the offer (including any smart switches that are installed at the time), so you can’t take them out unless you’ve specifically negotiated that with the buyer before closing.

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11

I think I would pull everything but the switches that would be a major expense and/or pain to do. Leaving them might give me an excuse to upgrade them at the new house….

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12

Rock solid advice. Automation didn't add anything to the value of my old home; my realtor and I were both concerned it would make the house more difficult to sell. It cost me about $1200 to replace all the switches/outlets and pay for an electrician. I listed the house only after I removed everything. And I think we were generally correct because I had offers within 24-48 hours.

I haven't added automation to the new house yet; whenever I sell it, the automation is going to go with it.

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13

When we put our house on the market 2 years ago, we used a phrase to the effect of "smart home ready". We kept our C7, so this was the best description that did not overpromise or sound scary. It is up to buyers (and their home inspector by extension) to do due diligence on what that means.

Consider what you want to keep because you likely have to disclose removal of installed equipment. Consider how things will behave if the hub is removed.

In our case, the buyer was an engineer and SmartThings user and was delighted to receive a spreadsheet detailing devices, locations, and protocols. I would not count on that happening twice.

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14

All real estate agents lie. Their only personal interest in your house is making their 6% commission, and doing as little work as possible to make as much money for themselves.

It is the role of a real estate agent to act as a broker and promote a property. My system saves me hundreds of dollars per year in electrical and fuel costs, provides criminal deterrent, convenience, peace of mind when gone, yada yada yada. These are all positive selling points to the right agent.

If an agent doesn’t understand the benefits of home automation, find another agent. In my experience, that means someone under 50 years old and fulltime.

Concerning taking my system with me for reinstallation, I see no reason to remove and take outdated equipment (non z-wave plus devices, C7s, etc.) I’ll buy new stuff (with the money the broker will “make” for me.)

Calculate the cost of the equipment installed and add it to the selling price of the house. That amount can then be used as a negotiating amount if needed. If the new buyer doesn’t want the system, they can remove it and sell it on Craigslist or FB Marketplace.

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I admire your optimism about the perceived value of your smart-home setup, but I think you are wildly overestimating the average joe's appetite (and capability!) to take over & maintain a robust smart-home setup.

RE agents have the exact same goal as you (sell for as much as possible) -- in most cases, a robust non-commercial (Hubitat/ HA/ST/etc) smart-home setup is a negative selling point, not a positive one. Like it or not, that's the reality.

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Pretty cynical view of realtors, and I think that 6% is usually split between buyer and seller agents (assuming both are involved in a transaction). But sure, avoid a real estate agent if you don’t like them.

The real point is to know your own market.

However one structures their home sale, assuming most potential buyers will actually want a home automation system that requires even modest maintenance seems like a bad assumption in most cases to me too.

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17

I've been here. The choice is this in my opinion. Remove it all before listing or leave it.

18

I sold my home with a Hubitat hub, a Hue Bridge, and a Lutron Smart Bridge Pro, but for two reasons.

  1. My agent and their team thought it wouldn't hurt the sale (good advice to consult with your selling agent), but they didn't push the fact that it was a smart home, and only mentioned it at the very bottom of the listing. The agents didn't understand smart homes at all. It was a crazy market, and the fact that it had smart lighting probably did very little in hindsight.

  2. Adding smarts helped me. I needed to have ceiling lights and a center light, invidually switched in each of the bedrooms. Copper wire was expensive, time was short, and the effort in a house built in 1926 was high. I had already rewired the entire house, disconnecting every last bit of knob and tube wiring, when the designer sprung the bedroom lighting requirement on me. So using Picos and Hue bulbs for the center lights was much faster and easier.

I changed every other switch in the house to a Lutron Caséta dimmer. That in hindsight was probably a waste of money. The house had Yale YRD256 smart locks which I left, but I removed the Z-Wave modules. Also took my Nest Protect smoke detectors and replaced them with regular smoke detectors. Left my Ecobee 3, Ring Alarm and Delta Touch20 faucet, but removed the VoiceIQ module. No other smarts in the house, just lighting. If I was to need to do it again for the same lighting situation and time/effort savings, I would. However, I would take absolutely everything else and would have put regular dimmers throughout.

I've not seen in the house since we left, but I later learned that the very high price they paid for our house, wasn't a very big stretch for them. They replaced the doors and locks, so both keyless smart locks are gone, and I heard from old neighbors that they did a lot of work inside (we had just completely renovated the house with a very in vogue style and they apparently changed most of it). My guess is the smart home stuff I left for the older couple that bought our house may have all gone in the trash or into someone elses hands. :person_shrugging:

Bottom line is, you cannot know who is going to buy your home (unless you are the seller and agent), and you'll never know their true intent until they do it. It's their home, forget about what goes on after you sell. I too thought I was going to give them a guided tour of the smarts, but in the end it was a whirlwind process, where we had very little contact with them. The two times they came in the house after the sale (as was allowed in the terms), they only cared about taking measurements for changes they were planning to make. I did create a detailed printed guide that explained everything and showed pictures of where the smart switches were, what they controlled and how to use them. Even pointed the guy to this forum for friendly help and answers. Maybe I'm wrong and he's here as a memeber, using Hubitat and expanding on it, but I suspect that's not the case.

I will add that utilizing the years of experience and essentially desiging a near bullet-proof smart lighting system for the new buyers, taught me a lot. I used that experience to convert our current 1986 home from a 3-way lighting maze, to a very solid and user-friendly smart home. None of the overboard smart stuff that our old home had, and consistent dimmer brand/type throughout, with many stratigicly installed Picos and very descrete, often completley unnoticable motion/occupancy sensors throughout.

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19

When we moved in back in 1982 the seller had taken every light bulb in the house.

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20

Did you buy from the Grinch?

Also, I think you could have fought them for those bulbs back. Like others said, if it is a fixture in the home while listed it is expected to come with it unless explicitly called out in the listing / offer.

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21

This was a foreclosure. The couple divorced and she got the house and didn’t do anything to it for 5 years. She used the AC condenser to stop her motorcycle. The fins were all smashed in on one side. The front screen door was hanging by one hinge. The patio door had to be picked up to be moved. The shower door had been broken for a while so they showered and let the water go all over the bathroom floor. Once we had light bulbs in the basement we saw over 50 slugs on the floor.

But the house has good bones. Rafters and floor joists are 2x12 on 16” centers. Walls are also on 16” centers. Every room has almost perfect 90 degree corners. No aluminum wiring (built in 1969).
They skimped on the foundation. It is not 8’ but rather 7’6” for some reason.

We bought it in 1982 and have spent a lot of money and time to get it right.