{"id":782,"date":"2020-11-09T18:23:22","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T18:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/?p=782"},"modified":"2020-11-09T18:23:22","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T18:23:22","slug":"is-home-warranty-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/09\/is-home-warranty-worth-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Home Warranty Worth It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>For\ninvestors or first time landlords, the most asked question we get is \u201cshould I\nget a Home Warranty?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a great feature, for owners living in the covered home. However, when it comes to your rental property, <strong>we don\u2019t advise a home warranty policy<\/strong>. It\u2019s not worth the cost and causes a plethora of problems for renters and property managers. Here is what you need to know:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>You\nand BPM don\u2019t get to pick your vendors, which means you can\u2019t be sure the vendor\nhas availability asap, can do the work right, not overcharge, and certified\nrepairs with warranty on labor or parts. We don\u2019t get to know the vendor has\nquality technicians who are kind and courteous.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>BarronsPM\ndoes not get updated on the status of the work orders. BPM has to call the\nvendor and home warranty company to obtain an update. Normally taking a minimum\nof 1 hour on hold.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Vendors\nare hard to reach, the vendors home warranty companies use don\u2019t normally have\na local number, you have to call a 1-800 number and go through a phone tree.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Vendors\nnormally won\u2019t do any repair on the first visit. The vendor will not do\nanything until the home warranty company approves the repair first, this takes normally\ntakes about 2-4 days, and then the vendor has to schedule again to visit, when\nthey have availability. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Not\neverything is covered. For example, home warranty does not cover freon charges to\nan a\/c, this is a cost that you have to pay BEFORE the vendor will do anything.\nAnd can be in excess of $600 in some cases.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>The\nhome warranty company wants the least expensive thing, not the best option for\nthe home. <ul><li>For example, we recently\nhad a property with an a\/c not cooling, after 3 days of waiting for the home\nwarranty assigned vendor to have availability, the technician \u201cfound nothing\nwrong\u201d, we called home warranty again and asked for a re-call for them to go\nback, and now they have found an issue. After 2 more days of waiting for home\nwarranty to authorize the repair, the tech went back to do a repair. While\ndoing said repair, he broke something else, without knowing. BPM had to call\nthe home warranty AGAIN, and they sent the same vendor back. The vendor wants\ndid another repair, breaking another items. Now the unit requires an electrician,\nanother service call charge to your credit card. Since this whole mess has\ntaken so long, we asked for our preferred vendor to assess and they highly\nrecommended replacement as repairs will be constant in the future and the unit\nis bad condition due to age. The home warranty will not agree to this, and the\nowner is stuck waiting for the contract to end so she can properly take care of\nthe home and the tenant. So, here we are, 4 WEEKS later, and the tenant has\nbeen without a\/c for a month and the repair is STILL NOT DONE.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Time is Money<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As\na landlord, the Florida Landlord Laws require you to make repairs to your\nrental property in a reasonable amount of time. We like to respond to\nmaintenance issues quickly, whether they are emergency repairs or routine\nissues. When you work with a warranty company, your timeline is unpredictable\nand it can take a lot of extra days to get any work done at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s\nthe process: First, the tenant will report an issue. Is it covered? We don\u2019t know\nuntil waiting on hold with the Home Warranty for them to confirm. This process\ncan take from a few minutes to hours. Home Warranties are notorious for long\nwaits on hold and bad communication. After BarronsPM has filed a claim, and\nyour credit card has been charged for the service fee, it may take a few days\nor even a week for someone from the assigned vendor visit the property for\ndiagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once a claim is filed, there are many <strong>delays<\/strong> that could occur, here are examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Scheduling-\nIt&#8217;s not uncommon for a warranty company vendor to call the wrong person (you,\nthe owner instead of the tenant) to schedule. They have a habit of contacting\nthe owner of the property to schedule the repair even when it is made clear to\nthem upon filing a claim who actually needs to be contacted for scheduling.<\/li><li>The\nwarranty company may not dispatch a vendor until they&#8217;ve received a service fee\nfrom either the owner or the property manager. Depending on the warranty\ncompany, they might have different rules as to who they can receive that\npayment from.<\/li><li>Warranty\nvendors needing to order parts.<\/li><li>Warranty\nvendors failing to submit their repair estimate\/recommendations for further\napproval.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Habitability needs such as hot water and heat\nare extremely time-sensitive, and you want to make sure such repairs are made\nwith a great sense of urgency. Working with a warranty company makes that\ndifficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Non- Preferred Vendors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another\nissue with warranty companies is that they maintain their own list of vendors.\nWe cannot have our preferred HVAC repair person respond to the repair request,\nand we can\u2019t use a plumber who may already know the home inside and out. You\u2019ll\nhave to use the vendor that the warranty company has contracted with. Most of\nwhich are not quality workers, but cheap labor. And what\u2019s frustrating to Property\nManagers like us is that we strive to maintain only the most professional\ncontractors in the area are working on our clients\u2019 homes. We can\u2019t certify the\nwork done by someone we have not vetted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Frustrated Tenants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When\nrepairs drag on and on and it takes multiple visits by representatives of the\nwarranty company, tenants will likely grow frustrated. This is not good for\nyou, because it means you\u2019ll be left with unhappy tenants who are unlikely to\nrenew their lease or leave early without finishing the lease. Tenants may also\nwant rent credits for having \u201cinhabitable\u201d conditions, even if the repairs are\nnot emergencies, they will fight tooth and nail for rent credits on the\nsmallest of things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Industry statistics show that the number one reason tenants don&#8217;t renew their lease is due to a lack of attentiveness to\u00a0maintenance\u00a0issues. Having a home warranty will only increase the chances of joining this group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For investors or first time landlords, the most asked question we get is \u201cshould I get a Home Warranty?\u201d This is a great feature, for owners living in the covered home. However, when it comes to your rental property, we &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/09\/is-home-warranty-worth-it\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronspropertymanagers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}