As the recent housing boom slows down, new home builders need to find ways to compete with the used houses that are piling up on the market. Solution: the smart home.

Digital features are a big competitive advantage. Of the 8.2 million houses sold last year, seven million were existing homes with outmoded floor plans, obsolete home wiring and no home office space. - MSNBC.com

While it’s possible to retrofit an older home with digital bells and whistles, it’s far cheaper and easier to trick out a new home. When the walls are open, additional wiring is relatively inexpensive to add and other amenities — such as a killer home theater system — can be painlessly financed over a thirty-year mortgage. What makes this strategy even more appealing is that home builders are now courting a new generation of younger buyers who consider technology a natural part of their lives.

Builders are already moving in this direction. Nearly 50 percent of the new homes sold in the U.S. last year had “structured wiring” — usually several Cat-5 wires for data and two coaxial cables for video distribution (and some builders add additional wires for audio). Even though wireless distribution of data, audio and video is rapidly improving, most experts agree that homeowners are better off having wires in place if possible. Whatever wireless is able to do, wires can do better and more cheaply, with the added benefit that there is no radio interference to worry about as the home airspace fills up with other wireless signals.

More important than technology, however, is the question of how home automation improves life for the homebuyer. One example: Mom drives home from shopping and when she presses a button on a remote control, the garage door opens, the house door unlocks, the thermostat turns up and the lights on the path to the kitchen turn on. No fumbling with keys or light switches when the arms are filled with groceries. Or Dad leaves the house and once outside realizes that lights have been left on upstairs — again, a touch of the remote control (which may actually be built into the car dashboard) turns the lights off. According to one speaker, that level of functionality can now be built throughout a new home for as little as $8,000, using a combination of wired and wireless components.

Arcamm is your custom solution for new home construction. With industry experience in the methods described above, we can design and deliver the a/v and smart home needs your clients want in a home.