Abstract
We are the first to show that home warranties are beneficial by providing a valuable form of insurance to home buyers, which home sellers then (partially) extract in the form of price premiums and faster sales. The benefits of offering a home warranty differ among homes, with older homes tending to receive larger price premiums and lower-priced homes tending to sell faster. For the average home in our data that is priced at $236,000 and 28 years old, offering a home warranty is associated with a price premium of at least $4,000 and a reduction in time on market of at least 2.5 days. Additionally we find some evidence of principal-agent conflicts in the home warranty market.