A home warranty is designed to cover mechanical, plumbing and major appliance repairs that homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover, such as clogged pipes, furnace failures, or appliances that stop working. For an a la carte fee to the main package purchase, extra items such as minor roof leak repairs, septic tank pumping, water softeners, guest homes, wet bar refrigerators, re-key services, portable spa equipment, additional pool or spa equipment and more, can all have warranty coverage. Some companies have extra member benefit discounts for lawn care, and some offer furnace filter delivery services year round (yes, for additional fees).
Are you an existing homeowner without a warranty? Did you know that ANYONE can have a home warranty on their home or rental? You never know when a heat or plumbing system, appliance, or garage door will break down. Repairing these systems requires time to look for a suitable repair technician and high repair costs, so why not order a home warranty and have everything covered to have peace of mind?
Selling? Make sure your agent gets a FREE listing home warranty, especially if appliances are older! All of our listed homes have one, so if anything breaks during the listing, the seller is covered with only a small service fee to fix or replace the appliance. Then when we get a contract to purchase the home, we have the home warranty in place and it can be transferred to the buyer and paid for at closing.
Once during a listing, one of our seller’s stove-oven died. For a $60 service fee, a new stove was delivered because the old one could not be repaired. Sellers were happy to only pay a fee, and the new buyers were ecstatic to have a new stove and oven!
As a landlord, remember to cover your investments with a warranty, too. I made the mistake of NOT having one on a rental, years ago, only to have the furnace go out in the middle of the winter. The emergency repair cost $1500. Never again! For less than $500 a year for most packages, I can rest easy knowing that if any major repair were needed, it would be a $60 service fee to get that repair completed or the item replaced!
At my closing with a buyer today, we purchased the warranty for the new (old) home. The buyer said that since I had mentioned that a homeowner can get one too, even if they are already living in the home, her elderly parents were now looking into buying one for their home. Anyone on a set budget cannot afford to have any major appliances go out, especially in the middle of winter or extreme heat of summer.
If you are a homeowner, a landlord, have elderly parents who cannot fix things themselves or are on a fixed budget, are a buyer or a seller, make sure to have your appliances and more covered to avoid having to make last minute, very expensive repairs!