Do you use a national Home Warranty Company?
Does your E&O insurance give you a break on your deductible if you do have a home warranty in place?
What does your Home Warranty Company DO for YOUR business?
We use First American Home Warranty and I do believe they are national. They have always provide professional quick service whenever any of our clients had to call for service. We always encourage our sellers to offer it to the Buyer when selling their home and we put the warranty in place during the listing period so that the sellers can be covered incase a problem should arise. And we always ask for coverage from First American for our Buyers.
As for the E&O issue I don't have an answer for that.
My partner and I both agree having a home warranty in place on our listings does help in some way especially if the mechanicals are a bit on the old side.
We've even taken advantage of their free customizable newsletter that we send out to our farm from time to time. It has a home tip or two, a recipe, some info on interest rates and other miscelaneous info.
Susan Noble
We use CRES Home Warranty. We do get a break on the deductible for E&O and they offer 25K coverage for the seller.
I know some places offer sellers coverage for free during the listing; I've got a company that does mailouts that are co-branded and does jumbo postcards for like 31 cents a piece with a 200 piece minimum.
I've heard of a couple of companies that do follow-up mailings that are co-branded to maintain contact with your clients. I opt for the E&O coverage.
Janet
AHS warranty and yes E&O gives us a break
Ron, the mail-outs sould like a good idea for homes in the neighborhood surrounding the listing. Can you share the name of the Home Warranty Company please?
Thanks, Jay
We also use American Home Shield (AHS)
First American most times. Mails out follow up postcards.
We use HSA Home Warrant they are great. For you sellers they work well because you can set them up on a home warranty while their homes is up for sale and it doesn't cost your homeowner anything. These is a great feature to use when getting a listing.
If anything breaks down or fails that is covered your seller pays the $100 deductible and they send someone out to fix it. I would recommend them.
They make it easy for real estate agents you go to their website and create an account and then when you have a listing to cover log into your account and input a new home warranty and now your seller is setup with Home Warranty.
When you have a closing date you simply go in put the closing date information in and the closing attorney so that if it is being paid for out of closing cost HSA gets in contact with the closing attorney so that the closing attorney has all the information and at closing a check is mailed to HSA and the buyer now has a home warranty that is good for one year and can also be renewed year after year.
You can also get free promotional materials from HSA for sign riders, pamphlets, stickers and other things that you can use to help market the Home Warranty with selling your listing.
http://www.onlinehsa.com
They are great to work with a real asset to real estate agents.
I have been liking Fidelity a lot lately www.homewarranty.com
And yes, E/O is kinder when you have as many transactions as possible using a home warranty.
Unless the property is a teardown or I'm working with an investor who, for instance I have one who's a plumber and he rehabs everything fearlessly, I tell them I will armwrestle them and make them say UNCLE unless they get a warranty.
If a contract comes in on a listing of mine, I ask the buyer's agent why they are declining a warranty if they indicate that. If there's no good reason, I try to get them to ask their client to reconsider, or cover it, or I will split it with them.
AHS and yes the E & O gives you a break. Check with Pearl Assoc. they're on realtor.org as an approved vendor, I think. If you need their phone etc. send me an e-mail at eoinsurance@ct-homesellers.com
I have found the home warranty company is only as good as it's representative. Have had experience with AHS, First American and Buyers - when something goes array it is the rep. I called. First American was the most receptive at solving the problems.
Jana
We use AHS. I haven't had a problem.
I can tell you steer away from AEON. I'm in a nightmare with them right now (I represented the Buyer. The Seller's Agent bought this). Looks like my Buyer is going to have to eat some expehses.