Home Warranty Protection - your opinions (San Diego: homes, plumbing, expense)

[FL70]

Home warranties are insurance. And like any other insurace, most people won't need it.

Collect a little bit of $ from a lot of people, and pay out some to the few who end up needing it. That is how insurance works.

As burrogs said, you have to get (un)lucky in order to make any insurance worth it.

As for companies, we had AHS for years and they were professional.

[eileenkeeney]

My question is,
Why are Realtors writing into sales contracts, that the seller will purchase a home warranty for the buyer?

Would they not better serve their client by writing in an option
maybe
Seller will either purchase a home warranty (up to $500) OR pay $500 (in addition to what other clauses indicate) toward the buyers closing costs?

At first I thought the home warranty, purchased by the seller, was a good thing.
Then I did research.
I think it could be more of a liability than an asset (or just a waste, because I will decide to just call a reputable service company to do the repairs and/or replacement).

Even if the majority of reviews, are by those who have complaints, it seems that the number and nature of the reviews indicate that these policies fail to add much value.

[loves2read]

we also have AHS and the only problem is that you can't pick your repair person
you get whoever responds to the AHS posting--they have people who I think pay them a fee to get on their list of responders

the plumber we had come out was find
we get the Sears people for the dishwasher--again that is ok

but an electrician I had come out for something could have given me the same info to check before making the trip and I could have found the problem---
my husband just did not know how to check this new breaker box for a tripped breaker--

the electrician we had used at our other house WOULD have told me to check that when I called with the problem--and would have saved me the service call--
I know because they had me do something similar before--

right now I have an AC guy out to check the HVAC for summer use--he told the the capacitors on the motors are all below tolerance--same thing the guy told me last year when he came out--
capacitors are "wearable" factors--AHS won't cover them--just like they would not cover the light balusters in our florescent fixtures when they went bad--they were 6 yrs old--that is when they start to fail--
so we had to pay to have them replaced--chose to use our familiar electrician and just get all the light fixtures replaced--we bought the lights--and they installed them--really less expensive than getting the balusters replaced because the electrician would have supplied the parts and done the labor...
they told us it was less expensive for us to buy the lights--

so if you think you don't need the warranty--try to negotiate for something else--
no one says you have to do it that way...

[Willsson]

I'll go with the explanation that a home warranty is something like insurance and like insurance, my only plan to use it is for catastrophic reasons. Or at least something more than a general repair.

I used American Home Shield in Dallas for about 5 years, calling them three times for electrical reason and once for an AC problem.

Of the three electrical reasons, I paid the full amount, maybe up to a couple hundred bucks each, including visit. The second electrical reversed a couple of wires in my thermostat which resulted in an other problem later on.

The AC visit, I had to replace the evaporator unit and for some reason none of the cost was born by the warranty. Replacing the evap did result in an improved electrical arrangement in the breaker box, releiving the original electrical problems mentioned above. When I moved in the place there was a double lugged breaker due to an previous installation of a washer/dryer, beyond the capacity of the breaker box.

I moved to another city and now have Allied Home Warranty, a Texas company out of Houston. That was really my only criteria to make the choice but kind of like insurance, hopefully you won't need it until after you die. I did include an upgrade to include appliances (fridge and wash/dryer combo) but I bought those new and didn't want to pay for extended warranties.

I have had an electrician here to move the stove plug but paid that out of pocket. I'm about to have another electrician about a very old breaker box and possible replacement and move. I intend to pay that out of pocket as well unless I run into some extreme condition.

On the link to review the home warranty companies it looks as though the first couple have more stars but few reviews, the middle bunch tend to look about the same. My conclusion is that like insurance, home warranties are a bit of a gamble.

[nsumner]

Originally Posted by eileenkeeney

My question is,
Why are Realtors writing into sales contracts, that the seller will purchase a home warranty for the buyer?

Would they not better serve their client by writing in an option
maybe
Seller will either purchase a home warranty (up to $500) OR pay $500 (in addition to what other clauses indicate) toward the buyers closing costs?

At first I thought the home warranty, purchased by the seller, was a good thing.
Then I did research.
I think it could be more of a liability than an asset (or just a waste, because I will decide to just call a reputable service company to do the repairs and/or replacement).

Even if the majority of reviews, are by those who have complaints, it seems that the number and nature of the reviews indicate that these policies fail to add much value.

I'm confused. You think it's a liability to the seller? Why?

The seller pays for the it and the buyer chooses the warranty company. Just replaced the pool pump using the warranty company. It cost me $60 and the pump was $2800 and the warranty company paid for it. That's a no brainer. I have seen it countless times pay for itself with one phone call.

Naima

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by nsumner

I'm confused. You think it's a liability to the seller? Why?

The seller pays for the it and the buyer chooses the warranty company. Just replaced the pool pump using the warranty company. It cost me $60 and the pump was $2800 and the warranty company paid for it. That's a no brainer. I have seen it countless times pay for itself with one phone call.

Naima

Mine paid for itself last year with a gas leak. I renewed it recently and my AC promptly died and I sprung a leak in the bathroom. Long story on the AC but it's now fixed after lots of calls and pestering and complaining; the first company tried to rip me off and I demanded a second opinion, I was right that further repairs weren't necessary and that the secondary condensate line was dripping due to blockage in the primary line. The plumbing leak is ongoing; they had to order parts. A whole valve has to be replaced. Fun!

So far my experiences with AHS have been mostly positive with one glaring exception; they sent a BBB F-rated company to fix my AC and it caused all sorts of problems requiring lots of phone calls and persistence to put right, but I got it sorted out in the end.

[OneBill2mny]

When we purchased our current home, the sellers offered us a home warranty with First American (1st AM). They are simply awful. Their reps are only allowed to make outbound customer service calls for 1 hour a day! You can imagine that getting a return call takes an act of congress, the blessings of the pope, and a letter of introduction by Queen Elizabeth! I'm not sure I would agree to use them again if they paid me $1000.00.

Shiny Side Up!
Bill

[longhornswin]

Bump this thread.

We are closing in a few days, and chose Everything Residential Home Warranty, based in Irving. They sound legit, but we'll see. I will make sure to update this thread with a review that's positive or negative if we have to use them for repairs.

[Joannewebx]

We had AHS last year, and it more than paid for itself, so we renewed it (about $600/year). It is tricky, though, because they did send the creepiest-looking workers from weird companies. One guy who showed up on my doorstep appeared almost homeless, with no teeth and was carrying just a bucket, wrench and dirty rag, and announced he was the plumber AHS was sending. He could not solve the problem and I couldn't wait to get him out of my house, so I called the plumbing company and asked for them to send out a superviser for my plumbing job. The plumbing company doesn't want a lot of negative reviews going back to AHS (or maybe they'd be off their list) so they very nicely sent out a supervisor and he was great. The same experience happened with the appliance repair guy and the AC repair guy. Each time they sent out a bottom of the barrel worker first, then I had them send a supervisor the 2nd time and the supervisors were actually great. Night and day. So I wrote down all the supervisors' names and the next time I had a problem, I requested the supervisor. Yes, this was all a time-consuming pain, but now I have a good list of people to request for future problems.

[numbskull]

Yeah...we don't like those icky looking folks with no teeth. How dare they want a job.