Smart buildings offer exciting opportunities for the future of the real estate industry. With the projected worldwide revenue of smart technology projected to increase to $182.3 billion by 2025, the value which smart technology can add to a property cannot be underestimated.
Renters are increasingly looking for smart technology in their homes and offices as technology becomes more integrated and commonplace in our day-to-day lives.
Think about how many times a day you ask Alexa or Siri a question - automated voice search is so integrated into our daily lives that we may not even classify it as ‘smart’ technology.
What exactly is it that makes a smart building, well, smart?
Smart buildings use technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) to transform the capabilities of a property. Different elements of a smart building— from cameras and sensors to heating and speakers — automate day-to-day processes in the home or workspace. The concept behind a smart building is to maximise the effectiveness of its occupants, creating an efficient environment that minimises life-time costs of hardware and facilities.
As more of the public become accustomed to the convenience of smart technology, properties that integrate smart devices have the edge on standard properties, as technology is a desirable asset in the modern home. Convenience is a key selling point for smart buildings, as 37% of UK adults agreed an advantage of smart tech is the ability to “make life easier” through automated daily processes. Not least this, smart homes offer increased energy efficiency - even simply installing a smart meter can reduce energy consumption by making tenants more aware of their usage.
What do smart buildings mean for estate agencies?
Though smart technology is predominantly found in commercial real estate, smart features are becoming increasingly popular assets in private properties and rentals. A building that can understand how its occupants act is a real game-changer, whether that’s by increasing workplace productivity or syncing a family calendar to security systems. Estate agents can use features of a smart building as key selling points to bolster their sales process and showcase how a smart property can benefit its tenants. By offering a more integrated and immersive lifestyle than standard buildings, smart technology can make all the difference when advertising a property to a prospective tenant or buyer.
As premium listings, smart properties also enable estate agents to charge higher rents as smart technology has the potential to increase property value by up to 35%. Private and commercial buildings which harness smart technologies offer desirable features and benefits to many landlords, tenants, and businesses. We've narrowed down some of the key areas in which smart buildings are trailblazers in the real estate industry and the key points which estate agents should be aware of when merchandising, advertising, and selling smart commercial or private properties.
What can smart technological innovation offer tenants?
It comes as no surprise that many smart buildings now come fully equipped as standard with technical innovation. Using automation to streamline almost every aspect of our daily routines, smart technology encourages a sense of togetherness and cohesion in household technology. Smart buildings help tenants feel more at home in their properties, by providing a unique type of ease of life for its occupants. This can be from families using smart technology to juggle schedules and set reminders, to simply being able to turn off your bedroom light whilst in bed using a mobile app rather than getting up!
A particularly attractive feature of smart buildings for tenants is their ability to offer automated security systems that can be accessed remotely. According to a recent US survey, 68% of the public were most familiar with smart security systems as opposed to other smart devices, with a further 53% being likely to own this technology. Smart security systems enable tenants to monitor their homes using sensors and cameras whilst they’re out, giving occupants peace of mind that their property is safe and secure. Tenants could also use smart home security to keep an eye on pets whilst they’re at work! In the UK, smart security systems can even lower home insurance rates as technology enables occupants to be proactive rather than reactive in their security.
What can smart technology innovation offer landlords and estate agents?
Smart building technology is becoming increasingly sought after by commercial and private rental market landlords looking to enhance both the tenant and landlord experience and property satisfaction.
As if the increased appeal of smart buildings wasn’t enough, IoT integrated building management systems can make life easier for estate agents who deal with managed properties. Though building management systems which use IoT are more common in modern apartments that integrate technology from construction, smart devices can be utilised and implemented in most managed properties.
Simple solutions like smart meters and thermostats which use sensors to automate heating and cooling could reduce maintenance issues such as damp and mould, future-proofing your properties by ensuring an excellent living condition is maintained.
Another invaluable addition to any managed property is a smart smoke and carbon monoxide detector. These have the potential to help tenants both avoid disastrous damage and hefty repair costs. Furthermore they ensure tenant safety and the safety of a property through its ability to send alerts to tenants’ smartphones if their alarm sounds.
In more advanced constructions, smart technology can run routine building data analytics to anticipate any faults before they occur and save costly repairs. Automated smart building maintenance could send automated alerts to property managers, streamlining the maintenance logging process and saving costly delays.
Dezrez offers an automated property management platform, ReziPM, to enable estate agents to streamline existing property management workflows from maintenance to autobanking. Take a look to see how ReziPM’s intuitive property management software can help you manage any property more effectively.
How can smart buildings positively impact future living?
Smart building technology can positively impact future living through fundamental design features. The COVID 19 pandemic saw us spending more time in our homes, resulting in many of us to rethink how best our space and resources could be utilised.
There's no doubt that a big factor of a smart building's appeal is increased energy efficiency and reduced energy costs for tenants. According to a 2019 study, 65% of the public stated that they would pay more to live in a smart home. This figure is likely to have increased over the past two years as sales of smart technology significantly increased over the course of the pandemic. By investing in a smart home, homeowners and tenants can expect to see a better return on investment (ROI) through their energy bills.
Even better, what’s good for the tenant’s pocket is good for the environment. Smart technology has the additional benefit of reducing the carbon footprint of UK households, which can help the UK reach our net-zero target by 2050 as 17% of the UK’s carbon emissions come from households.
What does the future of smart real estate look like?
For estate agents, smart building technology provides exciting opportunities to enhance the living experience by providing improved connectivity within the home. This proactive approach can boost how agents sell homes as clients are increasingly looking for increased property benefits. In the UK, 18% of households currently use smart building technology, and this is set to increase to 30% in the coming years.
Estate agents can also use the benefits of IoT-integrated homes and smart buildings to demonstrate the modern standard of their property portfolios and strengthen their sales rapport. Emphasising how smart technology can improve a tenant’s ROI, energy efficiency and overall ease of life will make selling smart properties practically automatic!
The increased appeal of smart homes is an asset to any estate agent’s repertoire and will only strengthen in the future. With this heightened interest in your property portfolios, you’ll need software that can keep up with your workflows.
Take a look at how Rezi estate agency software can streamline your real estate business. Book a demo and see how automated workflows and integrated communications can transform your agent's productivity.
