5 Ways to Turn Home Sales into Zoning Opportunities

Remember when you were in the market for a new home, and can you recall the exhaustive process of browsing through countless realtor sites looking for the perfect match? After looking at your top choices, were you surprised by the state of the home’s HVAC equipment?

Was the equipment about 15-30 years old, or still had the original equipment from 1982? Being in the HVAC Industry, it is easy to be biased. However, weren’t you shocked by how many homes have all the upgrades, such as granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and energy-efficient windows – but a ticking time bomb in the basement?

Homeowners tend only to update their home’s features that are visible to them and others. No one sees the furnace in the basement, so it is left alone, with only minimal repairs done. When they decide to sell the home, they hope the new buyer doesn’t catch on to the equipment age and demands a contingency clause of replacement.

If the seller doesn’t have a trusted comfort advisor, they may not even realize the functional need to update the equipment that has exceeded the ten or more-year mark. According to energy.gov (in an excellent article about choosing an HVAC system to share with customers), the average lifespan of an HVAC system is 15-20 years.

How can working with a realtor help you turn existing home sales into zoning sales?

Update and upgrade opportunities for your business

Find a successful realty company or individual realtor in your area and partner with them to help discover homes on the market that need HVAC system replacements and comfort enhancements like HVAC zoning systems.

Gather intel on the home before it’s sold

A realtor knows the ins and outs of homes they show and can spot layout challenges quickly, making them your “guy on the inside.” You can educate them on spotting old equipment and common home types, which could benefit from multiple thermostats with zoning. Craft some kind of lead generation deal for every one of their clients who signs with them and purchases equipment from you.

Get a trusted endorsement for your company’s services

Homebuyers tend to trust their realtor to advise them on the buying process, and pointing out an older piece of HVAC equipment, allows you to make a system swap out. The realtor can even roll the cost into the contract, benefiting the new home buyer with a new system.

Craft an enticing offer

Some HVAC contractors offer a program where customers buy a furnace and get the AC free. Programs like those are a perfect offer for home buyers dealing with old equipment. The HVAC contractor can adjust pricing to make the higher efficiency equipment more desirable.

Let your expertise benefit the realtor by visiting the home and performing a comfort audit. Look for areas with temperature differences and load shifts within the home.

Typically, these issues are caused by a lack of airflow due to the distance the airflow needs to travel to reach the designated area, under/oversized duct runs, and how the customers use the individual spaces in the home. Look for these issues and offer multiple solutions for either pre-sale updates or post-purchase upgrades.

Offer a complete solution

These are great opportunities to include comfort enhancement options like an HVAC zoning system as the new buyer is getting an existing home that was not designed around their comfort needs or lifestyle. It is hard to discern how the home was not designed around their comfort needs or lifestyle.

It is hard to determine how the home will heat and cool on a quick walk thru when the potential buyer is examining its other features. However, once the first cold winter or hot summer hits, the new buyer quickly realizes they should have paid attention to the stuffy second floor or cold bonus room.

HVAC zoning can provide a solution that isn’t the drastic budget and construction hit that a total replacement is but still addresses critical issues.

Contact us

All these factors impact a new homeowner’s overall happiness with their new home, and when you get in with them after they first move in, you have the potential to be their trusted comfort expert for many years to come. Furthermore, you open a new lead pool with other homes in the same neighborhood all of the same age and likely have the same comfort challenges, bringing in new opportunities for more revenue.