Thoughs on transitioning tenants to electric heating

[Vincent Drago]

I am a HVAC technician in new york, and recently came across the NYSERDA clean heat program incentivizing the installation of electric heat pumps. Its a really good program for people looking to install heat pumps in their homes and rentals. For multifamily buildings the incentives can go as high as $350,000.00.

I’ve already done a few projects and I would love to shift my focus to these types of government subsidized installations.The problem I’m seing is that since units run on electricity, the tennants will be responsible for their own heating costs. This sounds like a huge win as a landlord but how do you transition the units to this without seeming like you're trying to pull one over on the tenants? Has any one made this transition and offered a short or long term rent reduction?

[Alecia Loveless]

@Vincent Drago I am transitioning many of my tenants to paying for their own heat right now except in my case it is propane heat. I have either kept their rents lower than the area average market rents or made a small downward adjustment in rent in conjunction with not raising the rent for the current year to help offset the initial cost for the new addition of them paying for their heat.

In some properties where I live heat is included with rent and in others it is not. I just found too many of my tenants were keeping their heat at 78 degrees with their windows open on -20 degree days. By state law I’m only required to keep the heat at 68 degrees.

So as a compromise to the tenants comfort level I felt that rather than making them cold by me forcing them to keep it 10 degrees colder than they desire I will allow them to pay to keep it as hot as they want it.