Should I offer buyers a home warranty?
Written and reviewed by Andrew Ragusa, Licensed Real Estate Broker and Broker of Record, REMI Realty LLC — 11+ years of transactions across Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens.
The short answer
A home warranty can be a useful extra for a buyer, but I would not make it a priority over important repairs, updates or deferred maintenance. If the money available to prepare the house is limited, there are usually better places to put it, starting with the problems a buyer is likely to notice during a showing or an inspection.
Whether a warranty makes sense depends on the house and on what that particular warranty actually covers. Coverage, exclusions and limits vary from one plan to the next, so I would not treat it as something that covers everything or that can only help. I explain how I set preparation priorities in the Seller’s Playbook.