Answering Your Questions About Home Warranties

Having a warranty on your home can make life easier for homeowners, landlords, and tenants. Watch this short video to learn how.

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Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by Heidi Marshall with First American Home Warranty as we discuss the most important things you should know about home warranties.

Here’s what Heidi has to say:

One of the biggest benefits of having a home warranty is the peace of mind. You don’t have to do research to find, for example, a plumber or an AC company. With a home warranty, it covers your major appliances—the air conditioner, electrical, plumbing, and so on. If there is a claim that needs to be placed, you just call the number and can have any questions about repairs answered.

Another great thing about having home warranties is that there is no charge for replacement refrigerant or freon if your AC unit isn’t functioning properly. Normally that can be very pricey.

It can also be a great option for rentals, which includes all parties. Landlords won’t need to worry about a phone call in the middle of the night about a leak in the bathroom. Tenants can call the warranty company 24/7, place the claim, and the landlord won’t have to worry about finding an emergency plumber.

One of the biggest benefits of having a home warranty is the peace of mind.

And we’re all over—if you have a rental in Los Angeles, Orange County, or Nevada, you can place your claim in any of those areas. It makes life easier both on you, and on your pocketbook.

Many clients over the years have been able to take advantage of their home warranties, whether it be for replacing a water heater or other important home appliance.

It’s very important that when your agent writes the contract, they put in the proper coverage. Make sure that those things that are important to you are covered, such as an air conditioner or a pool. Personal appliances that you bring in the home should also be covered.

If you have any questions about home warranties, please contact Heidi by phone or email and if you have any real estate questions, please contact us at the Scott Himelstein Group. Thanks again for watching our video blog.

How Can Insurance Prepare You for Disasters?

In light of the recent natural disasters that have been happening around our country, I want to talk today about the importance of being properly insured.

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In light of the recent natural disasters in our country, I wanted to talk today about how you can be prepared for these kinds of happenings.

To help me cover this subject, I recently met with Zachary Schneiderman of Schneiderman Insurance. Having insurance coverage is just one of the many ways you can prepare for potential disasters.

Something Zachary suggests to everyone is to ask for an annual review. To do this, call your insurance agent and make sure that your home is insured to its current replacement value. 

This is especially important given the fact that a study recently revealed a high percentage of homes to be uninsured based on their current replacement values.

Make sure you are properly insuring your home and its contents.

If you are underinsured by over 20%, certain insurance policies will carry clauses stating that they may only insure you for a percentage of the loss.

Making sure you are properly insuring your home and its contents is critical. It’s also always a good idea to review your other insurance policies, as well. It is much better to be safe than sorry. 

Even small, preventative measures can make a big difference. For example, you should absolutely save your insurance agent’s number into your phone. Also, store your policy number somewhere that is easily accessible. 

Being able to contact your agent at a moment’s notice will become greatly helpful in the event of an emergency. However, remember to talk to your agent before filing a claim. An insurance agent will help you determine whether the claim is appropriate to file. 

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

What Do You Get With an Umbrella Policy?

Have you considered an umbrella policy as a homeowner? I'm joined by an expert to help me explain what you get with this type of coverage.

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Umbrella policies are extremely important if you own a home or rental property. To help me explain why, I'm joined today by Zachary Schneiderman of Schneiderman Insurance Agency.

An umbrella policy adds liability coverage on top of underlying policies. So if you have auto and homeowners insurance, they each have their standard liability limits. The umbrella policy requires a certain minimum amount of liability underlying it. It usually adds on in $1 million increments over your home and auto. It's about $300 a year for two cars and a home, which isn't that much money to spend for a lot of liability coverage. 

If you have an auto accident or an accident at home, that liability you carry isn't always enough when you think about the catastrophes that can happen. Any sort of accident in your home can bring liability against you as the homeowner. An example would be someone getting hurt on the diving board if you have a pool. That's why you want to be sure you have enough protection to hopefully settle the matter with the other party.

An umbrella policy adds liability coverage on top of underlying policies.

Another reason an umbrella policy is so important is for things like getting sued after an auto accident. 

If you don't have enough insurance and someone is severely injured in an accident, the medical costs and pain and suffering costs awarded by the court can be well above the $250,000 you have as your limit of your auto policy. An umbrella policy provides you that extra money for a very cheap price and gives you the ability to have an insurance company step in and defend you and settle the matter so that nobody comes after your assets. If you don't have enough money on your auto policy in this example, they're going to go somewhere else to find  the rest or if.

If you're a landlord and have rental property, the umbrella policy is really a no-brainer. Anything you own as a personal liability policy—home, auto, motorcycle, boat, jet skis, etc.—you can have under your umbrella policy. You can have a rental property under it as long as it's four units or fewer. It becomes a little bit more expensive for every unit you add on, but you add that liability with one policy over all of those other elements you own and give yourself a lot more protection. Remember, when you're in those positions, you likely have more assets. 

It's not a lot of money to add that liability. It's a simple solution to giving you peace of mind no matter what instance comes up. As Zachary says, they don't know what claims will be brought against you, they just know that there's always the potential. 

If you have any questions about these policies, you can reach Zachary at (818) 322-4744 or visit his website.

As always, if you have any real estate questions, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I'm always happy to help!

Should You Invest in Solar Power?

Solar panels can be a great investment. However, you need to look into some of the details first before you decide to lease or buy a system.

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Does it make sense for you as a homeowner to invest in solar panels for your home? It depends. First, you want to determine whether you want to lease the system or buy it outright. If you are going to lease it, there a couple of things you need to remember:

1. You don’t receive any federal subsidies or tax savings—all of those go to the leasing company.

2. You have to qualify for the full cost of the system, which will also count against your debt ratio. 

You need to know how much energy you’ll use.

If you decide to purchase the system, there are a few distinct advantages, including:

1. Tax benefits and federal subsidies.

2. The ability to get loans from government programs like HERO or PACE that will help you finance the purchase.

3. A power purchase agreement where you can decide how much energy you are going to pay for each month.

When it comes down to it, you need to know what your energy usage is. If you’re going to use a lot of energy, it does make sense to go for solar panels. Think about installing solar panels as a kind of home improvement. Some buyers in the future may not want solar panels, or they may want to replace them with the advances that this technology continues to make in this field.

If you have any questions for us about solar energy or real estate, give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you.

What You Need to Know About the Proposed Tax Increases

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With so much focus on the presidential election this November, it’s easy to overlook some of the proposed state and local measures on the ballot that can affect homeowners in Southern California. Today I’d like to take an opportunity to discuss some of those with you so that you’ll be well-informed when it comes time to vote.

One of the proposed tax increases is coming from a Los Angeles city bond which will pay for housing for the homeless. If it passes, the city will be authorized to take out a $1.2 billion bond, which they will pay for by adding a new tax to property tax bills.

The city claims that the bond money couldn’t be used to pay for supportive services like mental health and substance abuse treatment, but only to buy land and housing. This would mean that the city would be allowed to use its powers of eminent domain to acquire land throughout Los Angeles. At that point, the land could be leased at a low cost to developers who win the contracts to build homeless housing.

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These tax hikes require the approval of two-thirds of the voters.

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The way this would work is that property owners would pay between $4.50 and $17.50 per year for every $100,000 of assessed value for up to 28 years in order to pay off the $1.2 billion homeless housing bond.

In addition, the Los Angeles County Community College District is seeking voter approval for a $3.3 billion facility bond, which would be paid for with another property tax as well.

Los Angeles County also wants voters to pay for parks with a parcel tax of 1.5 cents for every square foot of buildings on a property. This works out to about $22.50 per year for a 1,500 square foot building. This parks tax would affect businesses, too. Large commercial properties like warehouses and retailers would be hit with sharp tax increases, which will either be passed onto their customers with higher prices, or be absorbed as damage to their bottom line.

Luckily, because of Prop 13, initiated back in 1978 when the Tax Revolt Initiative was passed, the upside is that all of these proposed tax hikes require the approval of two-thirds of the voters in order to actually become law.

There is a lot to consider for November, not only with regard to the presidential election, but as far as local measures are concerned as well.

If you’d like more information about any of the proposed tax measures that we discussed today, or if you have any questions about real estate, feel free to reach out to us. Looking forward to your call!