ask a
Broker
Agent asks: Shoul d I encourage my sel l ers t o get a
home warrant y?
Here are a few things to keep in mind about home warranties: Your
client may be coming from a state where they are a common and
expected cost, or they might be coming from an area where they?re
uncommon and your client has never heard of them before. So a lot of
your recommendations and what you need to discuss with them will be
based on their past experiences with home warranties.
One thing to consider is that there are lots of home warranty
companies out there. I use a company called Landmark Home
Warranty; a woman named Summer is their local rep. What's great
about what this company offers, and maybe others offer it too, is that
your seller can actually sign up for a home warranty when they list the
house to provide to the buyers but they don't have to pay for anything
until it closes.
And if the property doesn't close, guess what? They don't have to pay
for the policy but they have coverage during the listing. So if
something happens a week or a month after listing it, the furnace goes
out or the dishwasher stops working or whatever, they would be
covered under this home warranty.
So there are a lot of reasons to encourage a home warranty. Kudos to
you as an agent for knowing that information and explaining the
benefit. Yes, it might be something you want to encourage your clients
to do as long as they know that ultimately it may be a cost they incur.
Some agents pay for the home warranty for their clients. You can do
that, and in this case I think it's a great way to go about it. You can get
them coverage starting now without them having to write a check and
they probably will like that and they won't mind paying for that home
warranty when it is wrapped up into all the normal closing costs.
Agent Quest ion about negot iat ing home inspect ion
it ems on a propert y t hat she has got t en under cont ract
af t er t here were mul t ipl e of f ers on t he propert y. Hers
was t he winning of f er, now her buyers want t o ask f or
everyt hing in t he report .
Her clients were the winning offer. They went 15 grand over the asking
price to be the winning offer. Her clients get a home inspection which
reveals that the roof is in really bad shape. They get the roofing
contractor out there and it is verified that yes, it actually needs a new
roof. The sellers actually don't disagree with this finding, so the buyers
request that the sellers pay for the new roof and they will ignore and
not ask for any of the other items that are in the home inspection.
The sellers do not agree to this. They say, ?We will cover half of it." The
buyers struggle with this because they have already gone $15k above
the asking price. The roof bid they get from the contractor is 16 grand.
So the buyers and sellers are stuck in this stalemate and it looks like
the deal is going F