At this stage, HA is still a hobby rather than a "real thing", so it's unlikely the new owner would want to deal with any of it - many things would just be unusable by a new owner. So there is an aspect of the decision that I think would obligate me to remove much of the automation.
For myself (after tricking my wife to allow it), a lot would depend on my continued interest in the hobby. It's possible my next move is to assisted living - not imminently, but I'd be happy staying here for a long time - so there's not much chance I'd want to continue the adventure.
My experience is that it depends on the price point and the buyer. My last house I listed it as an option to purchase on top of the listing price, like a washer or dryer...
The buyer opted to have it all removed, except the cameras on the outside, which they claimed were "fixtures".
Higher end homes with automation provides value, but only in a few instances and never anywhere close to what you paid for it.
Unfortunately, HA provides little value in the average home for resale, and in some cases, based on our feedback from potential buyers, some people were actually turned off by it or considered ripping it out as an extra expense they didn't want.
I look at it like carpet, new buyers want to make their new home theirs... HA is something that is personal, and using someone else's HA is awkward at best...
I can see selling as "smart home ready" meaning some of the infrastructure is there (switches & outlets mainly), but would never consider selling the hub along with it, much less a pre-programmed hub. First, it's personal like you said, and second, it basically puts the seller on the hook for initial support and training. NO THANKS. Once the sale is complete, staying in touch with the buyer is asking for trouble IMO.
Vastly different opinion on high end homes and condos with professionally installed systems. But diy is just that. It doesn't transfer to another without them also being diy. And if they are diy they will want to do it their way.
That study is interesting because it says buyers want it but does not address existing home sales with automation. Again, professionally installed is vastly different than an Alexa and a few bulbs or maybe a lock.
Their staging kit is little more than this.
The big shift will occur when your insurance gives discounts for owning self monitoring equipment for fire, water, etc. Until that happens this is a passion project for the diy and a very expensive professionally installed system. The gap will narrow eventually.
Contacted your insurance company? Mine does give discount for my connected smoke alarms, security system and water sensors/auto shut-off valve. They didn't care that it wasn't professionally installed. Just wanted to see receipts to prove that the items had been purchased.
I sold a house about 15 years ago where the extremely precious and artistic buyer demanded that I show him how the thermostat and dimmers worked. They were just regular rheostatic dimmers and a honeywell digital thermostat circa 2003. If the same guy looked at my house now, geez, I think the automation would scare him off.
When we sold our house last year, our realtor had to tell the showing realtors that they should start to expect to see and show more houses with automation and cameras. She thinks that it's the way the trend is going, but she also said like was mentioned before. It's considered to be part of the house. People won't pay more for it, but your house will probably sell before the neighbors because it has more "interesting detail". But no more money unless there's a bidding war.
I've sold >10 houses, most with automation of some kind. Various price points.
It has never increased sale value.
One sale it lowered it, in that the buyers wanted it all removed and "regular" switches and outlets put in. I wasn't local any more so had to pay an electrician.
Anyway. In my experience it doesn't increase value. Just my experience, yours may be different.
In the UK, there's a questionnaire that lists all the fixtures and fittings that are to be included as part of the sale. So you can be pretty clear about what is, and what isn't included. If you were expecting (for example) nice light fittings and expensive curtain poles that were up when you viewed the property, then you're much better served requesting that they remain when negotiating the price, or you're likely to find that when you get into the house, they've been replaced with whatever £5 variant remains.
Still, though... as I said earlier... I don't think that even in quite expensive properties, people would be prepared to pay much, if anything, for a home-brew automation system. I certainly can't see them paying what it costs in parts
Hi Everyone. I just received my Hubitat today and am trying to learn all I can. This question caught my eye since I just moved from an apartment(flat) into a house I now own. I HAD to remove all the smart devices and put back the dumb ones to get my deposit back. It was a real pain. It took me a month to work up the gusto to install them back in the house. And now I have to buy tons more since the house is bigger.
I've been using SmartThings/Alexa for about 2 years but I'm a software developer by day. The openness of Hubitat (and lack of cloud dependency) are real draws for me.
By way of introduction I'll say that I built my own garage door opener (wifi) using a $4 ESP8266 and a $4 relay and it works great. Happy to share the details if anyone is curious.
--Larry
The funny thing is I think high end house buyers would probably now expect there to be a professionally installed system (Crestron etc.). I know if I was going into the 2+million bracket I would definitely be looking for and expecting it. I agree that a homebrew system would very likely scare people off in that bracket for the same reason people who buy high end cars make sure the jack/toolkit has never ever been used
Thanks! I had HubDino open in another tab to check out. With SmartThings I used URI Switch device handler, which works great and lets me activate from Amazon Echo, but I'm looking to scale this up. Just had to add a couple "ReST" apis to the ESP gizmo.
(btw, is there a way to make links open in a new window?)
I'd like to hear more on your garage ESP8266 project. I have actually ordered some WeMo's Di1 Mini's with relay shields that I intend to install to my garage doors. There appears to be a few ways to get this working so I am interesting in hearing all options.
I'll take a picture of it and post it. But it was just a Node MCU on a mini bread-board with a simple Rest API. Something super simple like this project. Then I connected one of the GPIO pins to a 3.3v relay. The relay itself is just wired into the opener - same terminals as the button on the wall.
Newer garage door openers need a special signal, not just a short. For that, I bought an extra wall button off of ebay and soldered wires to the button's internal button on the circuit board ( I hope that makes sense). Those wires connect to my relay.
The ESP8266 is one of the most stable smart gizmos in my house.
Larry,
I'd be interested in a few pictures of that circuit board, and what you soldered on it.
The new Chamberlain/Liftmaster/etc.- I thought that it needed only their parts.
