Give Your Buyer a Comfort Blanket

OK, so you’ve renovated your property and it looks fabulous.  Time to get it sold.  What else can we do to make it sell quickly?  Give the new owner a security blanket!  What Security blanket?…A home warranty!  Regardless of whether they’re representing buyers or sellers in the home sales process, real estate agents are expecting to see a home warranty as part of the sale.

However, it’s worth noting that many clients might not be familiar with the benefits a home warranty can provide, so it’s important that agents make sure they can carefully explain what home warranties do and do not cover, what they typically cost, and so on.  According to the National Association of Realtors, the more buyers and sellers know about these financial products, the more likely they will be to understand why they’re so important.

Why they are important
Usually, a home warranty won’t cost more than a few hundred dollars, but it provides significant financial coverage for buyers during and after the sale. For sellers, especially those who make the choice to buy them just as they start are putting their homes on the market, those protections will extend throughout the listing process as well. The things around a home typically covered by a home warranty including plumbing, HVAC and electrical systems, as well as major appliances.  However, the buyer of the warranty should make sure that they are getting coverage they need.  For example, if a house does not have a pool there is no need for a warranty that includes a pool filter system.

While this can definitely be an extra expense for buyers or sellers, experts recommend it be included because home warranties protect all parties and don’t significantly add to the costs associated with the homebuying process. Also, the party responsible for paying for the warranty either before or after it is purchased is certainly up for negotiation, which is another reason industry insiders say it’s often wise for sellers to buy in advance and then, potentially, ask buyers to reimburse them later.

What’s actually covered
Indeed, buyers and sellers who aren’t familiar with the real estate sales process will likely have questions about what, specifically, a home warranty covers.  That’s why it’s important for agents to explain not only what components of a home it may cover, but also what that entails. For instance, if something goes wrong with a refrigerator, heating system or plumbing, the warranty will typically cover the cost of repairing or replacing the problem in full.

Home warranties are quite common during the real estate sales process simply because of how much value they can provide in the event of unexpected problems. However, which party actually pays for it can vary from one purchase to the next depending on any number of things. With this in mind, it’s important for anyone on either the buyer or seller’s side to know how these protections will affect them even long after a sale has been completed.

To that end, agents who can best explain these issues to their clients – whether they’re buyers or sellers – and help them find the most reasonable solutions will likely be the ones who engender the most client satisfaction. That, in turn, leads to better ongoing relationships to potentially result in more business down the road, both from repeat clients and positive word of mouth.