A Question About Selling a House

First off I am not selling my house but I am curious as to an aspect of selling a house.

Our house has an extensive internal computer and phone system that unless the new owners were to be made aware of it they would not have any idea of what is there or how to use it. So does a system like this get ripped out by the vendor or just left in place. All the routers, switches, mesh network etc is hidden in out of the way places and I doubt the average person could even find half the equipment and would not have the access passwords to get into it if they knew it was there. Explaining it was there to an agent would be useless and if the new owners were made aware of it I doubt they could fix any problems anyway unless they were very network savvy.

I networked my house and when it was sold all equipment like router, servers, VOIP system got ripped out. I did leave the rack and it was labelled so if they bothered to read it they could work out where to plug the phone. All cabling stayed. I did a decent job with it, 2 ports per wall plug to almost every room. New owners never asked and I never said anything. Doubt it got used.

When I sold my place, I write a doc for the new owner about what it all was, how to patch sockets to be phone or network or home security etc. Whether they used that is entirely up to them.


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There have been houses sold that advertise these features as selling points. As to passwords etc. these could be changed to something generic before selling and passed on to the new owners

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Originally Posted by Lappa

There have been houses sold that advertise these features as selling points. As to passwords etc. these could be changed to something generic before selling and passed on to the new owners

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If you can physically access these things most have a factory reset button on them anyway. Then the new owners can configure them how they want. If I was to move I would take all my stuff with me and just leave the cables in the walls.

Like many "home improvements" the network infrastructure & cabling may have been a significant investment, but it only has value to those who know what it is, its benefits and how to use it. Plus it only has a relatively short service life - technology wise. Ethernet vs Wireless.

Plenty of homes with a pool have been purchased then the pool demolished!

It concerns me that many high ticket price items will become redundant or practically worthless due to the rapid march of technology, i.e. home automation systems linked to mobile tech - AMPS, CDMA, 3G to 5G etc. Motor vehicles are a good example - technology upgrades? system updates? potential hacking?

For some owners these systems are simply there in the background, and the first they become aware of it is when it stops working, or a mobile network is turned off! 3G isn't that far off shutdown in mid 2024.

It would be worth preparing an owners manual and leaving it in a drawer for a new owner. Unfortunately a lot of this cutting edge IT and automation systems are quickly made redundant with changing technology, so by the time a new owner gets to the home it may be of little benefit.

Case in point .... you mention an extensive phone network, this may be important to you however we haven’t had a home phone for many years!

When we moved into our unit there were ethernet ports in each room.

They all led to one bedrooms cupboard with a NBN fibre box.

No router or switch though. It was obviously up to each person on how to use it.


So, I popped in a decent modem with 1000Mb ports, plugged it up with short sexy cables. In the lounge is plugged the TV and computer. Son has his heater.... um.... nuclear-coal-burner-PC in his bedroom plugged in.

On the Wireless 5Ghz all the phones and laptop.

Its nice that the TV (a stupid-smart thing that I hate as Google spies on all) uses the ethernet so not to flood the wireless network while watching Netflix or such.

The NBN fibre is nice. Its a 100Mb/sec service from TPG that's $90 per month.


So yes, ports in walls are not a redundancy or anachronism... they are sold as a feature in freshly made yuppy pads :)

I'd leave some basic doco but I wouldn't go wild. Those who use it would quickly work it out (or bribe a mate).

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In our case a land line is necessary due to marginal or zero coverage. Not everyone lives in a metro area where mobile phones are taken for granted.

I agree, when selling document the fixed part and either remove or sell separately the routers etc.

But there is another good reason to document. In a typical household only one member possibly really understands what there is and how it works. With good documentation, it is possible for a 3rd party to provide support if required, for example in the event of let's say unforeseen circumstances...
Russ

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Originally Posted by russ57

it is possible for a 3rd party to provide support if required, for example in the event of let's say unforeseen circumstances...
Russ

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If only more people would take this approach it would greatly reduce the burden on loved ones in unforeseen and entirely predictable circumstances.

Please DAMHIK. Its very tragic when technology lets you down in a time of real need! Unfortunately, we are going to see many more tragic stories due to tech failures in natural disasters / emergencies. More tech is being installed "in the field" and the tech systems currently being "built" (I use that term very loosely) have little resilience and are not scoped for extended operation without a mains supply, most mobiles and street / country telco installations won't even last one day! Then there is the lack of preventative maintenance, bush fire resilience planning, yadda yadda.

The last place we sold Chris was full of home automation gear, network gear and PBX phone system including sensors for water tanks and soil moisture with automatic sprinkler systems, pumps for heating spa - you name it. When we listed the property it had a few buzz words to hint about the system in the details and if a buyer wanted to come back for a second look, I would tag along to answer questions. When negotiations started on price, we offered to leave the stuff as is for one price, and to remove all non required items for another.

In the end the buyer wanted it all to remain and we supplied configuration files and an outline of how the house was automated.

Received a call a few months after selling as they wanted some changes made and they were willing to pay for me to do the changes.
Definitely scared off a few prospective buyers at the start but got our asking price in the end.

Being an old, retired, telco nerd I understand costs, specifically the cost of installing the wiring of any network. About 40 years ago the kids and I installed cable TV wiring and audio from the stereo system to most rooms in the house. At work, when they were wiring the offices for LAN, I grabbed the spool ends of 100-Base-T wiring for use at home. The kids and I dragged those through the crawl space to most of the rooms.

All of this terminated into a hall closet. Everything is terminated in this closet. When it became time for the Cable TV modem it was terminated in that closet. The telco came off of the cable modem and later Internet off of the same modem. The original cable installation tech (idiot) female dog-ed about having to crawl through the attic to go from the cable drop to get the coax to the closet. I told him that "I guess we won't have cable TV then." And he went out to his truck to call his supervisor. Five minutes later he comes back really, really urinated off and crawls through the attic. Everything is terminated in the hall closet.

In the hall closet are the terminations for land line telco, cable TV and Internet. All of the in-house terminations are plug and play. There are electrical (Power Point) boxes in the wall with Internet and telephone terminations. The cable modem provides a telco land line connector and four 100-Base-T connections. All of this is connected with either RJ-11 (Telco) or RJ-45 (Internet) jumper cables. The jacks in the wall are labeled as to the room that is served by the wiring.

I avoid using WiFi for the in-house LAN (Internet) because I don't want my neighbor knocking on the door asking for their print out. Besides 100-Base-T is faster than WiFi. The land line phone doesn't matter much any more, but as long as the phone wiring doesn't put multiple devices on a leg, a dial up modem works just fine.

I have put together a book of sorts with pictures on how to connect / disconnect any service to any room as required. I call the closet, "Mom's Closet". By removing the antenna from the cable modem the WiFi is effectively dead and 100-Base-T must be used. Mom is in full control of the kids Network access. In the book it is suggested that Mom have the door latch on her closet be changed to a locking variety.

My kids are beyond needing Mom to control their Internet access but neighbors have asked how I did it. Everything is at the level of 'Not being able to spell Internet' but have complete control. It is much easier for Mom than having to log into the router and change the password.