Goodwill Ensues When Santa Clarita Home Seller Provides Home Warranty

Santa Clarita Home Warranty
Thinking About Offering A Home Warranty When Selling Your Santa Clarita Home?

Part of my job is to ensure the negotiation process goes smooth and to the advantage of my client. When I represent sellers, I always recommend that they purchase a home warranty when selling their Santa Clarita home.

While it’s very common to buy the home warranty for the home buyer, and this isn’t a revolutionary line of thinking, I want to review the benefits with you here since you may not be aware of them. Goodwill often ensues after agreeing to buy the home warranty for the buyer.

How?

First, when it comes time for the buyer to do their home inspection and they find things wrong with the home, the home warranty can come in handy to calm the buyer, even though items known prior to closing are not covered. Imagine if you rejected their request for you to provide the one year home warranty? Do you think the buyer has a higher or lower propensity at that point to ask for more items to be fixed during the escrow process via their repair request? If you buy it for them upfront, and they know that… they will likely have a bit more appreciation for you when drafting up the repair request. Deals frequently fall apart over the repair request, so this point shouldn’t be over-looked. That fact might save you hundreds, or possibly thousands of dollars. Less haggling. Peace of mind on both sides.

Second, once the buyer becomes the homeowner and escrow closes, what if something breaks down? Will they blame you? Will they think you didn’t disclose something properly? Will they ask you to fix something because they felt it was your fault? Whether they have any grounds for such a claim is neither here nor there… we’re talking  about purchasing the buyer a home warranty to minimize the likeliness or impact of these scenarios to you, the home seller. If something goes wrong after the close of escrow, and the buyer has a home warranty, they are more likely to feel great that that’s there to protect them in certain ways, and they feel appreciative that you agreed to pay for that protection. That sort of upfront goodwill in the purchase agreement can sometimes go a long way and reduce future headaches.

Here are a few links to some of the Home Warranty companies I like, that provide services in the Santa Clarita Valley”

Fidelity National Home Warranty

CRES Platinum Home Warranty By First American

Costs

Costs of a home warranty vary are are based on items such as size of home, add-on protection items such as pool/spa equipment coverage, whether it’s a condo or single family home, etc. A good estimate would be a cost of about $300 to $600 approx. Ask your agent what the best plan is to offer and figure out the cost of that plan prior to getting into a contract with a home buyer. It’s common for a home buyer to select their own warranty provider, and to name the maximum cost of that plan that you’d have to pay – it’s a negotiation. Please chat with your Realtor about it!

Hiring the right Santa Clarita real estate agent can also go a long way in lowering your risk and protecting your best interests. Need help with your home sale in the SCV? ASK Robert! You can call me anytime @ 661-373-2374.

Author: Robert Mickalson

Robert Mickalson created the Mickalson Group at Real Brokerage in Santa Clarita. He has been serving home buyers and sellers in and around Santa Clairta, CA for two decades. Robert's passion is to empower his clients with the most relevant housing market information. Bringing a boots on the ground perspective to this blog and also to his newsletter, SCV Cul-de-Scoop, are just a few ways Robert is able to help his clients, and the citizens of North LA County as a whole.