An Expensive Change For Air Conditioner Repair

In mid January 2006, Federal energy efficiency standards will mandidate that any air conditioner unit that is rated at 12 SEER (Seasonal Energy Effeciency Rating) or less, be repaired only with existing spare parts. The manufacture of all 12 SEER units will stop in January as well as the manufacturing of all spare parts for existing 12 SEER or less A/C unitsl

After mid January 2006, all 12 SEER air conditioning units that stop working and for which there are no longer spare parts will have to be replaced by units with at least a 13 SEER rating.

If you are buying a new home, be sure you are getting a 13 SEER unit at a minimum.

If you are a homeowner with a 12 SEER or less A/C unit (such as I have), once repair parts are exhausted you will have to foot the bill for a complete replacement 13 SEER unit. So, sooner or later (probably sooner) you will have to pay for a 13 SEER unit.

Some A/C units can be retrofitted with 13 SEER compressors, some will have to be replaced. Either way, homeowners will be facing a pretty large outlay.

If you have a home warrantee in place (recommended), check with your warrantee company to see how they are going to handle the costs of upgrading. My company, America Home Shield (AHS), is going to help with the costs of this upgrades for their customers.

AHS is going to sell upgraded coverage that will cover replacing/upgrading your A/C to the new standards for about a $60 additional policy premium. Their service charge will also increase from $35 per service call to $50 per call.

Other companies may handle this situation differently.

If you haven't heard from your Home Warrantee company on this, give them a call as soon as possible and see how much they are going to charge to continue your policy coverage on your A/C unit (repair/replace) service.

If what they tell you they will be charging for A/C coverage shocks you, shop around and see if another company is less expensive. Be sure to give yourself enough time to get this done before January.

The silver lining in all this is that your cooling bills will go down with the new units.

You can call me for more details at 602-370-1450.

Richard

November '05 Market Report

Headlines, Headlines, more and more headlines. Real Estate in the Phoenix area is still front page news.

Don't believe the headlines you are seeing in the local press or at least read the entire article before making up your mind.

We have seen everything from "Housing prices dropping" to (today) the National Association of Realtors saying that Phoenix house prices have increased 55% since this time last year (average national increase in home values was 15% for the same period).

What it boils down to is this. While marketing time is increasing along with the number of available homes, almost all the knowledgable people are predicting a robust 2006 for real estate with conservative monthly increases in value around 1.5%

We are still ahead of where we were last year in number of resale home sales. I spent all last weekend looking at new homes with out of town buyers. Most builders had some lots available but everyone was predicting that monthly (and sometimes weekly) price increases were going to continue with their builders. That means that the price of resale homes will be going up as well. If interest rates spike up, this could change.

SUMMARY: The frantic pace of last summer is cooling off. Home prices are still going up and are forecast to do so for this coming year. The pace of home sales is still brisk but not as frantic as this past Spring and Summer. Real estate is still a very good investment.

Richard