Home Networking

Another possibility would be to leave the hardware installed during showings, and make sure to say the house is wired professionally, but the hardware would not stay, but cables can be reused.

As a buyer, I would like to see the cables hanging otherwise.

If you remove the AP, leave pictures near their location saying it is wired and can be reused.

For us in this sub, this would be a plus for the house.

You can probably put “blank” electrical box covers on them if there’s a single gang box up there.

You could just screw a blank plate without any box. Tape the wire to the plate first screw the plate to the ceiling or wherever. When the new owner wants to use it it will be easy. If they don’t they can paint over the box or stuff it back in the ceiling and patch it.

Poke the connectors behind the drywall and mud it up. Will look better than faceplates

Once they’re attached to the house that’s a fixture my guy. Just leave it. It’s part of the house at this point.

Replace them with some cheaper AP Like a tplink.

Sell the house with the gear. Buy yourself some brand new stuff with brand new warranties

Ubiquiti stuff is so cheap that you just leave it in place or the wire hanging out and mention "network ready" on the disclosure.

They'll either use it, replace it, or rip it out but let the buyer determine that. I'd purposely not buy a house if I found out had cat 6 in the ceiling and they purposely put a gang box in the ceiling causing me even more work after closing.

I just added a keystone and faceplate on the ceiling.

Ok, so if you leave the ubiquiti ap’s, what about a controller? Do you leave that too?

So in my home, I did surface mount keystone boxes for all my APs already. I essentially have only have about 1-2” of blue cable showing before the box and then white cables going to my APs. I feel confident in saying when I eventually sell my home it will be perfectly acceptable to leave as is. Either taking the APs with me or offering whatever I use then with the home.

I'd install a single gang box and let the wire dangle.

I purposely ran all my ceiling wires to boxes. Easy for the next owner to add an AP mount or throw a cover over if they don't want to use it.

Everything runs back to patch panels in the basement (and is labeled), so all wiring conveys with the home and all hardware goes with me.

put all the APs back, leave a switch for them and directions on how to access them.

just leave the APs up there, or buy some shitty used APs to put up there instead if you really want to bring your old ones over to your new house.

Pushed the cable into the attic and took my AP's. Next owner will just use the isp provided router/modem

You should have put a keystone jack on the end of the cable originally.

Just leave them

I cut the cables and filled the 6mm hole with white pre-mixed plaster. Job done.

Now? I'd leave the APs and a dirt cheap poe switch, APs configured for a simple network, no vlan. They can then just plug it into their router.

Personally, I would leave it in place, and call it out as a feature in listings / showings. For your showings they can join the guest network and see how good their reception is.

I had put in a camera system at my last house and left it up with a cheap monitor for the showings. Sure I could have repurposed it after my move, but it was a good opportunity to upgrade with a guaranteed buyer for the old stuff. (and at a much higher sale price than I could have gotten off of marketplace listings.)

I pulled everything on my old house and just used some drywall patch for the holes, no one said anything

just add the cost to the house price and buy new the new owner may like it for a selling point

I look at moving as an opportunity to do it better. When I put in my APs, the U6 LRs were the best. I'd do it differently now, so I definitely would leave them. Offer them a $500 buyout option for the network as it sits and walk away if you don't want to just give it away. Generally, when selling a house though, the networking is trivial in the amounts of $s involved that I'd just let it go.

We bought a home that had lots of cabling but it was very badly arranged and installed, lots of it just laying on suspended ceiling in the basement in random directions, so I ripped it all out and did my own. After four years I'm still working on things such as badly placed outlets and even light switches that require you to walk across a dark room to turn on the lights, so this is not just homeowner but also the builder. When we switched from cable to fiber optic the installer wanted to just drill a new hole through the siding into our home office. And the new cable laid on top of my lawn for nearly two months before they sent out a guy to bury it by hand.

Since they are permanently installed, under the law, they are part of the house. If you want to take them, make sure that the listing includes that they are no included.

If I were in this situation, I would leave the access points installed, but not include any other equipment (switch, firewall, etc...) that is likely in your networking closet. I would note on the listing that the access points are included, but not the system.

Assuming you just had a small hole, I’d put a keystone jack and plate. Match the color. Sell as wired for internet.

Easiest or best? Best--install keystones and a proper jack. Easiest--put an outlet cover over it and screw it into the sheetrock (I've seen this done for holes in walls too)

Typically you would leave the AP’s. You wouldn’t remove the smoke detectors and take them with you would you?

Depending on how big of a hole there is I would remove the WAP, push the cable back up into the ceiling and then use drywall compound to fill the hole. Google how to patch drywall to get an idea of what I'm talking about. If your hole for the wire is the same size or not much bigger than the ethernet cable it should be pretty easy.

Or just leave the WAPs and buy new.

They're not that expensive, just leave them behind, add them as a perk "Pre-outfitted for WiFi"

Barring that, remove the mount, shove the cable back through the hole, and get a dab of drywall mud to patch it and paint over it.

All or nothing, you either do the full repair, or you leave them as is. (Personally I'd leave them as the time it takes to repair the mount points is worth more to me than the cost of a new Ubiquiti WAP.)

Keystone jack wall plate will prob be the cleanest solution

Well hooooooooly crap I was not expecting this much response!!

So some things to note.

House is being sold as a result of divorce. We’ve both moved on to our own spaces and neither of us have any need for networking as substantial as what I built in that house (I’m in a one bedroom apartment, she’s living with friends). It’s not just Wi-Fi that I had, it was a full UDM SE, POE switch, and cameras too. All the equipment will be sold and we are splitting whatever money I get for it all.

Our realtor (ex wife’s good friend) was afraid leaving everything up would be a negative in selling as the setup was far more advanced than the average person would understand. So everything has been removed.

At this point I think the simplest way is to just put a couple wall plates with keystones over the hole that the Ethernet is coming out and calling it a day. But I’m going to look through all the suggestions when I’m off work this afternoon before I do anything! Thanks again for all the responses!!

I think the APs are a fixture and likely included with the house unless the contract expressly excluded the equipment.

Don't forget to talk to your realtor about this.

Keystone wallplate and call it a day.

I would remove them and use them again and replace them with inexpensive A/P's as it will look better than a faceplate just get a generic white A/P. Anyone who knows networking will understand they can install there own easily. Anyone who doesn't will think nothing of them as they blend in where a faceplate is like why and the generic A/P answers the why. I would also replace the switch with a cheap POE switch.

After all it is several hundred thousand dollars (I am assuming).

I left the network wire hanging out my hallway ceiling. I also left a lengthy note about the house and included what that wire is for in the note so they don't try to plug something else into it.

My grandpa to this day still has these old spring mechanical fire alarms that went off when the beeswax melted. He was also the first to tell you that you wouldn’t be alive by the time the wax melted. They just added character to the house.

When we sold our house in Dallas back in March I left all the Home Automation installed. This included the ceiling mounted APs on each floor. I unclaimed the APs and left the Controller for all the lighting etc. I changed the login info for SmartThings to a generic Gmail Account and handed over the password at closing. I have no clue if it helped sell the house or not as it was sold BEFORE it officially posted on the MLS system. I want to believe it helped though.

I would leave the entire network in place. Equipment gets obsolete so fast, you are better off buying new stuff in your new house.

I asked the buyer if he wanted the ubiquity access points and explained nothing was plug and play / everything would be factory reset. He said take them so I snipped the cable ends and pulled any loose wires or pushed them into the drywall and mudded the holes.

Leave it, with a note of the URL to the owners manual online.

Does it have to be done before showing? Can you ask the realtor to ask the prospective buyer(s) what they would prefer? Were I buying a new house having it pre-wired for APs would be a definite plus. If they don't want it, I'd suggest just leaving the wiring in place but patching the holes in the ceiling. That way if they later change their mind, or sell it, someone might still get some use out of it. If they do want it, then the "unsightliness" of it isn't gonna be an issue anyway when they install their own APs.

I wired our last house and left all the wiring intact, along with the patch-panel in the basement, and the wall plates in rooms that were hard-wired, but took all the networking equipment with us.

Tbh, I have no idea if the new owners are using any of the wiring, or pulled it all out. Our realtor never mentioned it. The AP (House was small-ish, so a single AP blanketed the whole house in Wifi signal.) wasn't an issue in our case 'cause it was mounted in an unfinished attic and wasn't visible. There was also no permanent wiring for it. I just ran a 50ft. pre-terminated ethernet cable from the AP to the switch. Took both the cable and AP with us when we moved.

The attic had a gap around the chimney that went all the way to the crawlspace, so I didn't even need to fish the AP cable through any walls. Most of the other rooms had existing Coax panels that I just replaced with Ethernet, and used the existing coax to fish the Ethernet in from the crawlspace. So easy. Wish our current house had that setup. Though it obviously wasn't the most thermally efficient. Typical for a ~120 year old house.

It's best sometimes to just reset them through the controller and leave them behind. Buy new at the new place.

Keystone looks best