I couldn't agree more! These home warranties are just a way for everyone to feel warm and fuzzy about the house purchase. Both buyers and sellers think it protects them if something goes wrong. All it does is put money into the hands of the home warranty companies while you wait for your supposedly covered parts to arrive. And the deductible is ridiculous! When we bought our house, the sellers paid $360 as well (our deductible is $75) even though we didn't ask for a warranty. I guess most just assume it's part of the deal.

After my horrible experience (imagine 5 or 6 weeks mid-summer in Maryland with no a/c), I am no fan of home warranties.

So it just irks me to no end seeing that $450 charge on my contract paying for my buyer's home warranty, that they probably won't use or will learn to hate as well.

But I'm not arguing this point because I don't want to lose a sale over a lousy $450.

My Florida realtor knew we were planning to replace all the appliances, so she asked us to waive the home warranty. Apparently she normally buys it for her clients (she was acting as dual agent, so I don't know who she buys it for). We told her "of course!!!!" without giving it a thought. I don't expect it or even want it. Waste of money for both sides.

I also had a home warrantyÂ

Sewer needed to be replaced  not covered.

Auto garage door sprang its hinges (luckily no one was hurt) and needed to be replaced. Not covered.

Heater needed to be replaced  not covered.

Funny how everything that goes wrong with a place is not covered somehow in the fine printÂ

I actually had good luck with a home warranty a few years ago. The home was about 20 years old with lots of original mechanicals. And a few older things did die that year. We were out in the country and the warranty company did not have any local contractors of its own. Therefore, we got to choose our contractors and received good service. I have no idea how the experience would have been had they selected the contractors.

I have had mixed results with home warranties. I think my warranty payments are about equal to the disbursements I've gotten from the warranty company. I just got off the phone with a neighbor who is having her compressor replaced. She said the warranty save her about$1,000.

would it be smarter to put $350 in an escrow account to be tapped if the buyer needs it within the first year? Agree on a set of repairs that will be covered, and a procedure for reimbursement?

Agreed. We had two bad experiences with ours and I told them so when they called me wanting us to renew. I do believe I may have laughed at the woman over the phone.

The worst was when I was horribly ill with a nasty, nasty flu. The water heater sprang a leak. Imagine running around the house finding towels, pans, and a hose when you have a fever, nausea, and dizzyness. Fun.

I called the warranty company and they said they would have someone call me. An hour and several changes of pans under the water heater later, they hadn't called. So I called them. They said yes, they do emergency response service, and they would "try" to have someone out that day. I said, uh, no, I cannot have water leaking out of my water heater all day and night. How does the next day qualify as emergency service? The woman just kept insisting that was the best they could do. So I hung up on her and called another plumber who said they could be there in 20 minutes. We ended up using that company to replace both our water heaters with a tankless system, to the tune of several thousand dollars, none of it covered by the useless home warranty. I'll never bother with one again.

(Side note: yes, I tried to turn off the water and empty the tank. Didn't work. Even the plumber who came couldn't figure out whey the water wouldn't stop. He eventually found that the two water heaters had been linked such that there was a direct pipe between them with no valves that could be shut. So as I was trying to empty the tank, it was refilling from the other tank. They had to shut off the water to the whole house to get it to stop.)

We had good luck with ours (don't remember which one). We kept having fuses burn out because of the older fuse box. Ended up saving us over $600.

De

I had fantastic response from our home warranty.
For the cost of the $50 deductible, I got both toilets completely rebuilt and a brand new disposal in the sink.

Like every service in the world, some have a good experience and some have bad ones.
Just because you had a bad experience doesn't mean that all Home Warranties are scams.
And yes, you had the choice to apply that $100 to a new stove. Why didn't you?

My mom has had good experiences with American Home Shield. I don't know all of the details, but I know that they replaced her dishwasher. She has been so pleased with their service that she has renewed every year.

Another thing to think about: In my experience, many of the better (and/or best) tradesmen (electricians, HVAC, etc) won't do home warranty work because it pays very little and they are often pushed to keep obsolete and borderline dangerous equipment running by these warranty companies. If you need validation, go ask the guys at hvac-talk.com what they think about these warranties...

"And yes, you had the choice to apply that $100 to a new stove. Why didn't you?"

Because we TRUSTED that the warranty company would do what it says in our CONTRACT it will do. Our realtor is going to call the company and register a complaint for us.

Terriks, I have an American Home Shield warranty on my house too.

They've come out to fix 2 of our a/c units, our pool pump, and our oven.

Super fast, super friendly every time.

I see a lot of RE transactions with home warranties, and in our neck of the woods, AHS has least amount of negative feedback.

We had great service with our home warranty company in SoCal. House was built in 1958, standard tract with fair-average upkeep over the years. No service or maintenance records were given to us.

We bought the house in 2002 and sold in 2006. Seller paid the initial year and we renewed each year. I think it was around $300. Used the policy numerous times for different problems - plumbing, heating, a/c, electrical - good response, accurate billing, quality work. No problems. Service call was $50 each time.

It was Buyers Home Warranty Company or Best Home Warranty Company. The last call we made was when we'd sold the house and was in escrow - the built-in microwave quit working, we called and got a new one installed, for $50.

With the house we bought in December (built 1991) the seller gave us a one-year policy but we haven't used it yet. We have a slight plumbing problem in the hall bathroom tub, so may call in on that. I don't remember the name of the warranty company.

We also had two good experiences with our home warranty.

1. Our wall oven would not completely shut off (even when turned off it would heat slightly so we had to flip the breaker.) It was a 1950's Thermidor original to the house; really cool, but they deemed it not a good candidate for repair. So they gave us $1000 towards a new wall oven minus the deductible, no questions asked.

2. Our boiler had a slight water leak and they repaired it without any problem. The service guy had to make three trips (once to figure out what parts he needed and two to get it completely repaired.) We paid just the $100 deductible.

I thought about renewing but decided not to. Turns out we haven't really needed it again, so that was probably a good decision.

Maybe it's just Maryland, but we also had a horrible experience with our warranty company when our air conditioner/compressor broke down in July. Like c9pilot, we went for 5 or 6 weeks (essentially the rest of the summer) without air conditioning. One technician told us he could not fix it because it was a "maintenance" issue but he could sell us a maintenance plan.

Luckily for us, our agent and the seller's agent wrangled $2000 from the warranty company toward the replacement of the air compressor. They would have replaced the compressor for us but after 4 technician visits and back-and-forth, we didn't trust them.

Back in 1986, when we first bought a home with a home warranty, it did replace the AC condenser for us. Last year, our new-to-us 29 year-old house's water heater was running cold after half a shower. We had paid less for the house because it was all original mechanicals, we figured. We also had the home warranty. Know what the hoe warranty said about hot water? As long as nothing BROKE in the unit, they had no responsibility to fix it. Lack of hot water was not considered a problem because it did still heat water, just not very much! We replaced it on our dime and got the best rated one we could afford.

Do Realtors receive a commission for selling a home warranty to homesellers? My realtor did recommend that I buy one for the buyer. Makes me wonder how much (besides the real estate commission) he made off the sale of my house.
Susan

Some companies do offer a "spiff" to realtors. In our state, it's on our contracts that if a home warranty is purchased, the realtor may get a "spiff" from it.

It's around $50, depending on the company.

But even if a homeowner chooses to offer a home warranty on the sale of their house that didn't pay any bonuses, I still recommend them. I had a seller decide he didn't want to buy one, and a week before his house closed, his HVAC system died. If he'd purchased a home warranty, not only would his buyer be covered, but he would have been covered until the sale of the house went through. As it was, he had to spend $1400 on a new unit.

Had another seller who elected to include a home warranty for a prospective buyer. The warranty covered his property while it was on the market. In the middle of summer, one of his a/c compressors failed. $55 (plus the $400) fixed it, rather than him paying in the thousands.

It's just one of those things that goes a long way in protecting the property while it's being marketed, and also a "warm fuzzy" for buyers. No, they don't cover everything, but they sure can help!

We asked the seller to pay for an upgraded home warranty for a year because we bought the house in December and it was too cold for the inspector to check the central AC. The warranty gave us more peace of mind that the AC would work in the summer (it did).

It had to be an upgraded warranty, however, not a standard one, to cover the AC. The basic warranty won't cover many things.

i renew our hsa warranty every year for more than 4 years. did you know they have to replace with like/kind/type (if available)? did you know they have to let you call your own service tech is any of theirs cannot come out in a timely manner? did you know that they will do a cash out option if you are sick of fixing your old appliance or you want to upgrade to another appliance?

We have American Home Shield that was provided by the sellers when we bought this house and we have renewed it every year. Their service call fee is $50. We've had no problems and our AC is also covered.