Strategies for offsetting water bill to tenants multifamily

[Allen L.]

Hi all,

When operating say a ~50 unit multifamily with single water meter, what are some strategies that can be used to offset water bill onto tenants?

The property that I'm underwriting is going through $70/unit each month on unit mix of mostly 2br/1 bath, which is already ridiculously high. I am guessing the toilet/shower are not high efficiency, or maybe there's a leak, well that may be a value add I am more interested in offsetting the remaining cost to tenants

Some more background...

Small town of about 20K people, ~25 min drive away from a large city. Location is B class, low crime, property is B class and pretty sure the tenants are C class.

Here are some things that I want to do, but I want to get your opinion and any other ideas

- charge a flat rate for each unit each month, and obviously this would be written in the lease and tenants would know ahead of time

- charge a rate by sqft, so tenants occupying 750 sqft pays less than 1000 sqft unit, rate is FIXED and known at signing

- charge a rate by sqft, so tenants occupying 750 sqft pays less than 1000 sqft unit, rate is VARIABLE and is calculated from actual water bill

- increase rent price? (hah... this would probably not work for market tenants, maybe for Sec8)

In the above ^, I am hoping to also wrap in trash service in there.