As I write this, two people I care about are not talking to each other ....
At our real estate brokerage in Southwest Florida, John R. Wood Properties, company policy -- based on advice from the State of Florida -- is to advise our buyers that audio/visual surveillance equipment may be present in homes listed for sale. We go so far as to advise our buyers both verbally and in writing, and ask them to acknowledge that these systems, if in place, may be monitored.
The reason they are an issue for real estate buyers is that your "glee" or "excitement" in finding the right home may be seen and/or heard by a seller who is monitoring. And your bargaining power in a negotiation has gone out the window.
Bottom line: Enter ANY home and assume it has such a system, even if there is no evidence it does, or is not listed in the homes "features." Traditionally, these systems usually just covered the interior of a home, along with motion sensors, water leakage detectors, mold detectors, and glass breakage detectors. Now they include exterior video monitors and audio sensors that text alerts about motion or voices to a home owners hand-held device, smart-watch, etc. They are even built into doorbells.
In our region, as prices come down on such equipment, indoor/outdoor video/audio monitoring systems for homes are becoming far more common and not just a toy of the ultra wealthy.
But this is a personal note to my readers. While these systems are great for security, alerting homeowners of an intruder, or perhaps of even someone rooting through or stealing packages off a front porch, they can also have the unintended consequence of one party of a family overhearing another family member's private conversation. With devastating consequences.
Again, as I write this, two people I care about are not talking to each other. Yesterday, adult parent walked outside of the home of their adult child to have a private telephone conversation with a close friend. The video/audio doorbell system picked up the conversation and sent alerts to the adult child that someone was on the porch. Part of the conversation turned to issues of parenting differences and relationships. The adult child homeowner listened to the conversation and is insulted.
One feels like she is being criticized for how she lives her life, while the other feels her privacy was violated. They love each other and need each other. Yet both are strong-willed and reluctant to back down from their opinion.
UPDATE: There was just a hug between them but no apologies from either party. Progress?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use discretion in your conversations -- even if you are in your own home, or visiting the home of a family member or friend. A slip of the tongue, whether innocent or not, can be interpreted 100 different ways. But worse, it can be picked up on surveillance equipment that we increasingly take for granted. Walk out to the sidewalk. Don't stay on a porch. And if its your system that trips, and you realize its your parent on their phone and you can hear their conversation, yell at them that the mic is picking up what they are saying. By listening in, you've made a choice. And that choice might reveal a private conversation (we all have them) that isn't meant to be hurtful (the reason the parent walked outside to begin with), but might hurt someone's feelings.
I am a huge advocate of leading edge security systems, though I worry about security of the automated systems themselves as they rely increasingly on cloud computing and web connectivity. The ability however to monitor your front porch when we have this new sickness of thieves stealing deliveries off peoples' porches in record numbers is critical. And pricing for even the most basic systems are more and more affordable.
But the unintended consequences of these amazing systems, at least in my personal experience as we start our week, can be awful, and personal.
