Thinking smart
Smart homes comprise a relatively young portion of real estate — so why are they becoming important to veteran realtors? According to the National Association of Realtors’ Center for Realtor Technology’s new survey, smart homes are rapidly becoming attractive prospects to realtors and homeowners alike.
Of the NAR members interviewed, a whopping 42 percent expressed interest in obtaining a smart home certification. Similarly, while 22 percent were definitively uninterested, the remaining 36 percent were undecided. Given technology’s distinct polarizing effect on people (they love it completely, or they hate it uncompromisingly), this is a huge deviation from common culture.
New dog, new tricks
The most intriguing find here lies in the ages of the aforementioned interested realtors. While technology has historically been a young person’s game with an outlier here and there, the median age for those interested in a smart home certification was 52.
That means a hell of a lot of veterans are working alongside a similar group of millennials in order to facilitate smart home awareness and availability — quite the collaborative effort.
There are other significant statistics to consider here, as well.
Of all the items clients were most interested in for a prospective smart home, a majority cited security (81 percent), energy savings (78 percent), cost savings (77 percent), privacy (75 percent), and comfort (71 percent).
Keys to success
These stats are based off of a combination of the “very important” and “somewhat important” sections of the client poll, and they more or less speak for themselves — ease of mind and general comfort are inherent traits of all the above items.
In other words: if you’re looking to appeal to a client, you’ve got your criteria.
As it sits, NAR doesn’t have a smart home-specific certification. It does appear, however, that such a certification and a focal shift towards the respective field would benefit clients and realtors tremendously.
Check out the full CRT Survey here, it’s definitely worth a quick read.
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