How much do you think fancy gadgets add to the value of a house?

[scaredofthegarden]

Although I'm a die hard period home girl, I think I'm being seduced by a flirty newbuild. Its in a nice enough village but a bit far out of town really. But it has a central vacuum system, rainwater harvesting, a sonos sound system, heat recovery ventilation, mood lighting, induction hobs and a special gadget thing where you can have the sky box and all of the ugly stuff in a separate room but still operate them from the living room. Plus a living kitchen to die for with a wall of folding doors opening out onto a patio.

Are the gadgety things expensive to install? Are they worth paying extra for? Anyone have any and willing to share views?

Personally some of those things appeal to me (eg. the green ones like rainwater harvesting and the wall of folding doors) but TBH others don't appeal at all and I wouldn't want to be paying for them as they won't be cheap (rainwater harvesting when we looked into it was £2-3K for the equipment alone IIRC).

I would also be concerned about the potential for problems and cost of repairs with something like the central vacuum system for example.

Are these things all in place or are they options to have installed as the house is being built?

They are all installed already. I would never have looked at the house in the first place but for the green features which appeal to me, but now that I've seen all the gadgets in action I'm wondering whether they do put a premium on the value of the house or whether actually we could buy a period house as planned and add them in for relatively little extra cost.

Its also making it very difficult to compare the house with other new builds. Done a bit of googling but the websites don't seem to give out prices (which probably indicates that they are expensive)

Confused. If the gadgets are expsenive then its probably reasonably priced. But then gadgets date don't they.

They are all installed already. I would never have looked at the house in the first place but for the green features which appeal to me, but now that I've seen all the gadgets in action I'm wondering whether they do put a premium on the value of the house or whether actually we could buy a period house as planned and add them in for relatively little extra cost.

Its also making it very difficult to compare the house with other new builds. Done a bit of googling but the websites don't seem to give out prices (which probably indicates that they are expensive)

Confused. If the gadgets are expsenive then its probably reasonably priced. But then gadgets date don't they.

With regards to buying a period house and installing some of the gadgets it could be quite major work and costly too.

It would work out cheaper to install them as a house is being built or at least majorly renovated eg. the sound and light systems that can be controlled by a remote control whilst all the "ugly stuff" is hidden away in a central control panel would need wires laid all over the house. This would obviously be easier if the house is a bare shell with no finished walls/floors/ceilings.

Then again it would depend if you want all of the gadgets or not? If theres only one or two it might not be too expensive to add them to an otherwise perfect house.

We toyed with the idea of the rainwater harvesting last year when our garden was being dug up and landscaped as that would have been the ideal time to do it. We decided against it as the initial costs were high and we probably won't live here long enough to recoup the costs.

and yes, gadgets can date.

Too much to go wrong, and do you want the cost of fixing it? Wouldn't want an induction hob when I could have a range either. I'm a strictly period girl who happen to live in a modern rental, and my own period place in the UK is older and far better built than this is.

central vaccuum system - i'd buy it just for that!
i think if you priced them up individually for fitting and buying then it would be v expensive. But it's difficult if you don't have a house without the gadgets to compare.

Did you ever go ahead with this property?

The Sonos kit alone is about 300 quid per box, so if lots of rooms have it installed (and it works really well), then that might have made up a bit of the price.

However, unlike some other stuff, as it has its own wireless network, it can be added to an existing property without cables from room to room - just depends on what other kit is available (there are Sonos boxes with amps, just add speakers, or without an amp, plug it into existing hi-fi system, and even a box with its own speakers built in).

The Sonos remote control by itself is over 250 quid (it is quite a fancy remote!) but there's a free application for the iPod Touch or iPhone, so their own remote isn't absolutely essential.