Multifamily rentals are great. Lots of renters providing lots of revenue under one roof. Having everyone in one building means lower acquisition costs and probably lower maintenance costs per renter.
Utility costs are a different matter. Many buildings have one heat source servicing multiple tenants. Or one water source. Because nobody can tell who used what, guess who gets stuck with the bill?
Sure you might be able to keep the rents higher to cover the shared utilities. Then again, you might not. Depends on what kind of rental market you find yourself in.
What you can’t control is the usage. If the landlord is paying for the utilities, there is nothing to stop the renters from being a little less frugal. After all, they aren’t paying the bill. Why should they worry about long showers, leaky toilets or making their apartment a little extra ‘warm and cozy’ in the winter?
With the heat, you might be able to control the usage with certain devices to lock or monitor your thermostat. Not so much with the water…
Until now.
There’s No Such Thing as a Free Shower
A company out of Clark, New Jersey is here to help. Flows manufactures water meters that can be installed easily into water lines. Meters that can tell a landlord how much each tenant used each month.
In other words - cha-ching for the landlord.
With technology being what it is today, Flows has several offerings that can make it very easy to track water usage.
Since landlords are notoriously cheap, Flows’ most popular models are the economy versions. The difference between the two versions is the material used: plastic and lead-free brass.
The lead-free brass version meets all EPA requirements for lead-free water material. Put one of these babies on your water line, and shut down your bill paying for water.
It’ll probably pay for itself in a month or two. Just remember to mount them horizontally. They cannot provide accurate readings if mounted vertically.
What Else You Got?
A lot of property managers are not going to want to go down to their tenant’s basements and check the meters each month. Flows knows that. That’s why they have come out with other options to make a landlord’s job much easier.
The next step up is a digital pulse reader. The reader allows you to read the water outside the building without entering. Just swing by the building whenever you want and check it on the outside.
For property managers who live in a unit in the building they manage, Flows offers an alternative – a wireless home meter.
The wireless home meter can be mounted up to 150 feet (50 meters) from the water meter. Once mounted, it can provide historical usage for the previous 365 days in one-hour increments. The system works with up to 3 meters.
You can also connect a USB cable from the wireless meter to your computer and download the data into a spreadsheet. It’s a perfect format to show a tenant, who is complaining they’re paying too much for water.
For property managers with lots of units, they might want to look into a remote water meter reading system.
The remote system can read up to 32 wireless units in one property and remotely send a signal to the property manager’s office using the T-Mobile network. The data is uploaded to a website. After the initial purchase, you will have to pay for the cellular data usage, currently running about $30/month.
With that subscription, you have the ability to see the water usage online and export the information to use in a spreadsheet.
Depending on your area, you may need a $250 digital repeater to receive a signal strong enough for the website to upload.
Flows does provide discounts for buying water meters in bulk. ‘Bulk,’ in this case, means over 10 meters.
Each of these meters can be installed by a single person who is handy or by a plumber. They are powered by AA batteries, which can last up to 4-5 years with normal usage.
Looking ahead to the future, Flows has come out with a water meter that works on the Z-wave system. Z-wave is a ‘smart house’ system to alert owners when there is moisture in the house. It connects with humidity alarms to let you know you have a leak, and door sensors to say when a door is open.
The Flows Z-wave meter is called the FortrezZ Flowmeter and can be found on Amazon. With the Z-wave system, you can receive alerts and data right on your phone.
When you go to the Flows website, you may think some of the meters are expensive, particularly if you have a lot of units. Then you think how much money these flow meters can save you by having the tenants pay the water bills.
Suddenly these water meters seem pretty appealing!
Watcha Say?
Do you have a tool that helps with your water meter bill or other utilities? Tell us about it below.
Review Your Costs – Every dollar you can save is a dollar flowing to the bottom line. Spend some time periodically going through all your expenses.
Check Out Utility Savings Plans – From solar power, to high-efficiency appliance and HVAC rebates, it’s worth looking into how to save money on your utilities.
Count Utilities in Your Due Diligence – When comparing deals, one property might have shared utilities (meaning, you pay!) and one might have separate (tenants pay). Make sure you count the amount you pay into your numbers.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.