What are the benefits of home builder’s warranty management?

What is home builder’s warranty management?

After you’ve built a home, we understand that you’re keen to move on to building the next one. You want your homeowners to be happy with their new home. But you may be tired of taking the time to field all their warranty calls for weeks, months, or even years after they’ve moved in.
It’s inconvenient and time-consuming for you to determine which claims are covered by warranty and to schedule repairs. (On top of that, the costs of warrantable claims are unpredictable!)

What if you could save time, hassle, and money by having someone else handle all that on your behalf? When you partner with a home builder’s warranty management company, that’s what we do. Read on to find out more about the benefits of working with a warranty partner.

1. Financial benefits of home builder’s warranty management

Homeowner warranty calls are unpredictable. The costs are unpredictable too. If you partner with the right home builder’s warranty management company, you pay a one-time fee at escrow. There are no additional costs for warranty calls and repairs, no matter how many a homeowner requests during the warranty period.

This means you can simplify your business finances. You can budget for a stable expense on every home you build, instead of being taken by surprise by unpredictable — and possibly high — repair costs.
You also save money by saving time, if you work with a warranty management partner. You don’t need to take homeowners’ calls about the almost-inevitable little glitches that they discover need to be fixed after they’ve moved in. You don’t need to spend time educating homeowners about warrantable and non-warrantable claims.

Finally, although your trusted subcontractors will perform any repairs, you don’t need to spend time on the phone scheduling those repairs. Your warranty management partner should do that. You’re free to focus on your next build. Instead of spending your time and money on past projects, you can spend it on building new ones. All while knowing that your customers’ claims are being taken care of by your professional partner.

2. Warranty management means less hassle for builders

Although you want your customers to be taken care of, you don’t want to field emergency calls in the middle of the night or during a relaxing Sunday afternoon with your family! Your home builder’s warranty partner should be available 24/7/365, as we are.

If a homeowner calls about an emergency, we send one of your subcontractors out right away to deal with the problem. If it’s not emergency, we schedule an appointment with the homeowner. If we can determine whether the claim is warrantable from the homeowner’s photos, we’ll schedule one of your subs to perform the repair. If we can’t make the determination from the homeowner’s photos, the local walk agent assigned to your homes will go out in person. They’ll take photos, talk with the homeowner, and determine whether the claim is covered by warranty.
We use the standards in NAHB’s Residential Construction Performance Guidelines (RCPG) to determine whether a problem is covered by warranty. If you have to make these determinations, not only does that create extra hassle for you, homeowners may perceive judgements as less objective and fair.

You shouldn’t need to take the time to contact your subcontractors to arrange a repair; your warranty partner should take care of that for you. We keep track of any repairs until completion, and keep you informed every step of the way. You can also log in to our system and see progress for yourself.

All this means you don’t have the hassle of dealing with warranty calls on your previous builds, when you want to focus on building new homes!At the moment, every warranty call adds stress and hassle to your busy schedule. A warranty management partner simplifies your life.

3. Builders warranty management increases homeowner satisfaction

Your relationship with your new homeowners is important to you. We understand that referrals and positive reviews depend on you having satisfied customers.

A home builder’s warranty management partner helps take care of your homeowners. Your customers want the peace of mind that comes from knowing their home is covered by a written warranty. And they want to know they can call any time if they have a problem with their home. (Some states have implied warranties, but these can be open to the courts’ interpretation, if it ever comes to that. Well-written warranties remove ambiguity.)

But having well-written warranties and answering homeowners’ calls is the bare minimum. It shouldn’t stop there. There are third party warranty management companies that are just anonymous phone call takers. They’re not much more than call centers, staffed by strangers you and your homeowners never meet. With these companies, homeowners can’t talk with someone who has actually visited their home and knows their builder.

A genuine warranty management partner knows you and your homes. They’ve met your homeowners and visited their home, beginning with a walkthrough prior to closing. If you choose to partner with ProHome, a member of our team — we call them your walk agent — will do every walkthrough for all your homes. During the pre-closing walkthrough with you and your customers, your walk agent will reinforce the quality of the new home, show the homeowners how everything works, answer their questions, and create the punch list. The walkthrough is a complete orientation to their new home for your buyers. Our trained and certified agents explain things like how to operate the air conditioning and the irrigation system, how often they should change the filter in the furnace, how to turn off the water and gas supply, and so on. All the little details that new homeowners need to know.

After the new home orientation, a warranty management partner company will assign dedicated account managers to your homeowners. Your account manager knows how to operate the systems in the homes you build. They are available to answer your buyers’ questions, provide educational resources, and help them if they want to make a warranty claim.

If you choose to partner with ProHome, our team will get to know you, your homeowners, and the homes you’ve built. You and your homeowners will know us.

4. Marketing

When you partner with a home builder’s warranty management company, your homeowners know that no matter how busy you are, we are available around the clock, every day of the week throughout the year, to take their phone calls, answer their questions, and arrange for repairs. They appreciate being able to talk with a dedicated team member who is familiar with their home and who knows you and your subcontractors.
And, of course, the happier your homeowners are, the more likely they are to refer new business to you and to provide positive testimonials!

Whether you use your own warranty, use your state’s warranty, or use our warranty (customized to your needs), partnering with a warranty management company adds a degree of objectivity that your customers appreciate. It signals that you’re professional, you stand by your work, and you’re fair and unbiased. They can see that you have the stamp of approval from an unbiased third party — your home builder’s warranty partner. You’re giving your homeowners peace of mind and you can communicate that to potential customers in your marketing messages.

(If you choose ProHome to be your home builder’s warranty partner, we have videos that explain how you can use our partnership in your marketing.)

5. Decrease legal risks by using builder’s warranty management

No builder likes to think about it, but the possibility of a homeowner trying to sue you one day is not a risk you can ignore.

For example, in five years’ time, suppose a homeowner claims that a leak you didn’t repair is the cause of the black mold in their basement. If you can prove that you fixed the leak during the warranty period, you’ve demonstrated that you’re not responsible for the mold problem. But do you have a reliable system to store and easily retrieve detailed records of the warranty repairs you made five years ago?

A builder’s warranty management partner should keep meticulous records of every walkthrough, every phone call, every email, every warranty call, every repair — including before and after photos — so you don’t have to. For our builder partners, we maintain all these records for 11 years.

So we’ll have the proof that you took care of that leak five years ago. The proof that demonstrates you’re not responsible for the mold and are not on the hook for remediation costs.

You don’t need to keep on top of all those important records because your home builder’s warranty partner does it for you.

If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of working with ProHome as your home builders warranty management partner, please contact Matt at (316) 706-0368 or matt@prohome.com today.

If you know a builder who might find this information helpful, please share it.

Zena Ryder is a freelance writer who writes about the construction industry. You can find her at Zena, Freelance Writer and on LinkedIn.