Home Warranties

The question is do we get a home warranty or not for our rental property?  My thoughts are for your personal home, home warranties can be very favorable to an owner. But, when it comes to rental properties we have not had very positive experiences at all over the years.  Warranty companies in most cases do not seem to treat rental properties the same as they do your person property.  There is a huge lace of communication from the outsourced vendors that are contracted and them getting back to the management company.  We spend a massive amount of time trying to track down information on what is taking place or what the problem is and if it has been corrected.  Most work is done on a bandaid approach and time is not of the essences to the vendor or for the service.  In one of our most recent cases, we had a house with out AC for over 5 weeks which I think most of us would understand this is just not acceptable for anyone.  Sometimes we can save a little bit of money, but we have to look at the over all picture and really see if it is of true value.  The objective to having good rental properties is to keep them occupied and service/up keep is very important in keeping a tenants wanting to make a house a home.  When that happens, they tend to stay for a longer period of time and this truly effects your bottom-lines. When it comes to things that are cover under most home warranty plans, its typically major appliances and this is when "time is of the essences".  When the vendors do not resolve the issues with in a day or two, and yes in many case several weeks, then we all look bad and it becomes very costly in many different ways.  Just some thoughts on home warranties and when it comes to rental properties.

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