How A Home Warranty Will Benefit You

Bend, OR Real Estate Podcast with Christine Browning

If you’re buying a home, I highly recommend you get a home warranty. There are many benefits in doing so.

If you’re buying a home, should you get a home warranty? Oftentimes during a home sale, it’s natural for buyers to ask themselves this question and wonder whether they really need it. There are a few things you should know about what home warranties can do for you.

When buying a new construction home, it automatically comes with a 12-month warranty for all the major systems and components. When buying a home that’s not new construction, the day you close, you’ll be responsible for any issues that come up. Typically, these issues come up pretty quickly during that first year of ownership.

A home warranty covers all the major systems in the home, and Home Warranty of America even offers roof leak repair, which can come in handy for us central Oregon residents who just endured a winter that featured a lot of snow and ice dams.

The cost of a home warranty ranges from $370 to $500, and that sum can be included in your overall closing costs. The $500 plan covers everything and gives you additional coverage if items need to be replaced, whereas the $370 plan only covers the major systems.

When I’m working with a buyer, I always include the home warranty when I write up the offer and ask the seller to pay for it as part of the transaction. Roughly 75% of the time, sellers don’t mind doing this, and they’re happy to build confidence in the home they’re selling. If you work with our team, we always include this in the offer. If you’re working with another Realtor, ask them to ask the seller to pay for it.

When I’m working with a buyer, I always include the home warranty when I write up the offer.

If the seller doesn’t agree to pay for it, I highly recommend you at least get the minimum plan or find out about getting more coverage. I have a home warranty on my home that I renew every year. When living within a budget, you never know what can happen or what systems might fail that could cost you thousands of dollars.

One of the more common items new homeowners have issues with is water heaters. Sometimes buyers who buy their homes in the summer and turn on their furnace for the first time in fall find out that it’s not working. This happens because when the inspector turned on the furnace during the home inspection, they only did so for five or 10 minutes, which isn’t long enough to pick up on any potential problems. The same potential problem applies to AC units for buyers who buy during the winter.

The systems in the home that don’t get used are the ones that might get rusty or break down faster, and there are differences in usage patterns from one homeowner to another. If you have large family moving into a home where a smaller family lived, you’ll get more wear and tear in a home, and that’s why you see breakdowns happen almost immediately after the family moves in.

All of this is why we encourage all of our buyers to get a home warranty when purchasing a home. Hopefully the seller will pay for it, but if they don’t, you can get it incorporated into your closing costs through your loan.

If you have any questions, I’ve included a brochure in this blog which talks about the main things a home warranty covers. As always, if you have any other questions or you need to buy or sell a home in our central Oregon market, don’t hesitate to reach out to me anytime. I’d be happy to help you.