Water and Sewer Ballpark

[Trevor Lohman]

Hi guys, 

I know there is no way for anyone to accurately answer this question. 

I'm just looking for a ballpark average monthly cost for water and sewer in a cleveland SFR in your experience.

It sounds like in Cleveland (maybe all of ohio?) the owner pays sewer and water. I'm just looking for a ballpark figure for an SFR so I can run some cashflow estimates.

I was guessing 100 a month? I really have no idea other than  to guess it's a little less than my own residence out here in California... Which is about 150 a month. 

I'm also curious if anyone has had problems with this. Any horror stories of a tenant leaving the sprinklers on for 2 weeks or something... and how did you handle it?

Thanks for any feedback you guys can provide!

[Timothy Murphy III]

@Gwen Fyfe

A lot of owners choose to pay the water / sewer bill directly, even if they bill their tenants for actual usage. To the best of my knowledge, there's no requirement in law that this is done. Rather, it's because water / sewer in this market is different from other utilities because unpaid bills become a lien against the property similar to unpaid property taxes. If your tenant doesn't pay the electric bill, that doesn't come back on the owner or the property itself. But if the tenant doesn't pay the water bill, the owner will ultimately be responsible for it.