Smart Home Tech for the Luxury Market

Ease, efficiency and design are top concerns for luxury homeowners who want the best from their smart home technology. Planning and professional expertise can help.

Luxury home buyers expect the convenience and peace of mind of a professionally installed smart home system, but they don’t want to know it’s there. Nothing is worse than a big bank of switches on the wall and trying to get them all set correctly. With systems like Lutron, Crestron or Josh.ai, homeowners can set the scene and control their smart devices with a single button.

Likewise, using a smart home professional, such as a certified CEDIA integrator, helps homeowners ensure technology upgrades don’t impede the design of their home. This includes in-wall panels, hidden speakers, designer faceplates and the popular Samsung Frame TV, which displays art when you’re not watching TV.

source: https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/technology/smart-home-tech-for-the-luxury-market 

New Real Estate Forms Drive Your Client Relationships

State and local REALTOR® associations worked overtime to revise their forms and enhance member training to align with the practice changes.

REALTOR® associations across the country have diligently rolled out new practice standards as part of the National Association of REALTORS® proposed settlement agreement, which requires written buyer agreements that meet certain criteria and include revised compensation disclosures aimed at enhancing transparency and consumer choice.

The practice changes require MLS participants to establish written agreements with buyers they work with and prior to touring a home. NAR Senior Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs Charlie Lee says members should confirm with their form provider that the forms have been updated to comply with the practice changes.

State associations responded to these requirements, many going through multiple iterations of form updates until they got it right.

“It was a big task,” says Taylor Kitzmiller, associate counsel for Maryland REALTORS®, who detailed the state association’s proactive adjustments. “We really fleshed out our compensation section, explaining to the buyer what they are committing to pay their broker—whatever the broker and client end up agreeing to.”

source: https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/sales-marketing/new-real-estate-forms-drive-your-client-relationships

Consistency Is Crucial When Negotiating With Consumers

Now that practice changes have taken effect, ensure consumers are treated equally by developing policies to guide your conversations about compensation.

As a real estate professional, you know the best way to provide equal service is to be consistent in your business practices and how you treat each client. That consistency is key now that practice changes are in effect and you endeavor to address your compensation with clients.

You need to establish consistent policies and procedures for how you’ll guide the compensation conversation—and follow those practices every time. This is where your fair housing expertise comes into play. Pair your knowledge of your responsibilities and your clients’ rights under the law, as well as how to avoid implicit bias, with the information you have on NAR’s proposed settlement at fact realtor to inform your strategy around the compensation conversation.

“The settlement will result in a new system for compensating buyers’ agents, which will likely produce many different payment options and levels of service,” says attorney Robert Schwemm, who is the Ashland-Spears Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Kentucky College of Law. “Agents who offer multiple compensation options will inevitably deal with buyers, sellers and other agents on different terms.”

There’s nothing wrong with providing options, adds Schwemm, but the hallmark of fair housing compliance is consistency. So, the variety of approaches that agents and consumers adopt means there will be many opportunities for differential treatment. “Such differential treatment may lead to feelings of unfairness and discrimination, which, in turn, may raise fair housing issues,” Schwemm continues. “Don’t be surprised if fair housing groups use testers to see if buyers’ agents are discriminating on the basis of race or other prohibited factors.”