Explore the pros and cons of home warranties for your property. Decide if it’s a wise investment for long-term rental success.
Home Warranties: Are They a Sound Investment?
Mat Zalk is the President and Property Manager at Keyrenter Property Management, which has offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Arkansas. He focuses on the acquisition and management of single and multifamily residential properties on behalf of himself and a small network of investors.
Before founding Keyrenter Tulsa, Mat was a Strategy Director at The Property Finder Group, where he worked closely with the CEO and senior management team on various international acquisitions, scaled local teams in the group’s Saudi Arabia and Egypt offices, and executed a number of strategic projects in the business’ core market of Dubai. Mat has been an active investor since 2014 and is a licensed real estate agent in Oklahoma.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Property owners’ misconceptions about home warranties
- The complications with home warranties
- Mat Zalk provides alternative maintenance solutions
- Can landlords integrate maintenance costs with rent?
- When to invest in home warranties
In this episode…
When it comes to maintenance and repairs, property owners often acquire home warranties to offset the consequences of deferring maintenance. Landlords assume that by making initial investments, they can mitigate further maintenance costs. But home warranties have hidden risks homeowners should observe. How should you handle maintenance instead?
Like many businesses, home warranty companies’ main priority is to profit from homeowners. This means contracts often contain terms and conditions that limit or exclude coverage, forcing landlords to pay for uncovered services. Similarly, these businesses still charge for maintenance services despite the initial cost of the warranty. Home warranty corporations also delay service, leading to dissatisfied tenants. Rather than risking cash flow reduction, tenant attrition, and property deterioration, real estate specialist Mat Zalk suggests cultivating long-term relationships with reliable vendors, self-insuring your home, and conducting routine maintenance and repairs.
Join Mat Zalk for another episode of The Same Day Podcast as he chats with Chad Franzen of Rise25 about the dangers of home warranty companies. Mat also shares alternative maintenance solutions, why landlords can’t integrate maintenance costs with rent, and the appropriate scenarios for investing in home warranties.