Are Home Warranties worth it??

[Nick Frank]

I just acquired a single family home built in 1950.
and wanted to rent out the house on a 1 year lease.
I was considering getting a "Home Warranty".
Are they worth it or not ?
Everything in the house works, but you know there's
always small stuff...like toilets...etc....

BTW, i also know a good handy man who charges $25/ hour
to fix random stuff in the house.

Thanks!

[Brian Mathews]

I will give you my perspective and the other end of the home warranty. That of the hvac contractor. I've done work for 2 companies just to try them out and know many people who have worked for them. It seems to be pretty consistent from company to company, some better some worse. First of all, they are very hard to collect any money from. You pay the service call of $65 or whatever it is. Some of the warranty company's offer to reimburse anything above them, which is like pulling teeth from a toothless man, impossible. Others just don't pay the contractor anything aside from that $65, so they have to be creative to try to cover their overhead, cause $65 doesn't pay for anything on my end except gas in truck, a low paid person, therefore not very skilled driving it and insurance. Most people who do it, don't do it for very long. Usually anybody who has done it for any length of time is what I call a bottom feeder in the hvac world. You are getting the worst and biggest rip off artists, doing it honestly for any length of time, you go broke. Just my 2 cents for what its worth.