All Forum Posts by: Jedd Braunwarth

@Brian R. If you are looking for a company that also does stocks and bonds in addition to supporting real estate contact Creative Planning. My long time friend helps run the MN location. They can help do estate planning, life insurance, etc. all in house saving tons of money. They support RE investing as that is where the majority of my investments are and they have helped plan on where I am at now and what else I need and that includes RE goals. I can send you my friends direct contact if you want to reach out. Creativeplanning.com 

@Vibhu Arya, the costs will vary pretty widely depending on the layout of the property and if the plumbing is separated to each unit or not. Then it comes down to what features are you, as the landlord, looking for. Do you want to go to the property and get a meter reading each month and calculate the bill manually, pay someone else to do that or do you want it completely automated? Do you want a local company to do the submetering or can they be located anywhere? 

@Melissa Murphy we sponsored the podcast, True Submeter. Let us know if you have any questions still on submetering. Thanks!

@Dave Van Horn hope all is well! Wanted to reach out as nobody has responded to you in the couple of days. I can certainly answer any questions you have in regards to submetering. The submetering company on the podcast was most likely True Submeter, we sponsored show #301. Let me know what questions you have or shoot me a private message and I can help that way too. 

@John Crouthamel welcome to the forum. Des Moines area is awesome. What do you do for sales? I covered Iowa as a sales engineer for 5 years (technically still do...). Definately go to the Thursday meet up on Ingersoll. I do not make many anymore but still very beneficial. 

@Rich Jordan The pricing is going to be all over the board depending on what company you go with, types of meters available, if your plumbing is separated already or if it needs to be (depending on company or meter type). On my end pricing is going to be more in the $100 per unit range if plumbing is already separated and $300 per unit range if plumbing is not separated. Do you know how the plumbing runs in the 30 unit? Does each unit have it's own hot water heater? 

I can only speak for water as I do not know pricing for gas or electric as of today.

@Benjamin Seibert did you quote include separating plumbing? Was that from the local municipality or a submetering company?

@Jonathan Beasley There are plenty of options out there to submeter, some are expensive and don't make sense unless you scale, others can work on something as small as a duplex. Some of the biggest factors are what type of meter the company big selling, can the municipality install their own meters (this is the best), is plumbing separated, how expensive is your water/sewer. I see comments from VA and PA, those seem to have relatively high water and sewer fees so it make make sense and a fast ROI on smaller properties.

@Eric Maury, thanks, I started looking at all of these options myself with my own properties before starting my own metering company. Pricing is going to be all over the board depending on each company and what they have to offer. Let's chat in private as I do not want to seem to solicit to anyone and everyone on a public forum but in general our innovate model that installs in applications where plumbing is not separated probably runs $200-300 per apartment unit ($400-600 for an entire duplex). If plumbing was separate is is quite a bit less with all companies as you only need one water meter per apartment, think $100 per apartment unit. RUBS you may not even need any equipment as they just ratio the water bill based on either a percentage of the water bill each month, square footage of each apartment, number of people in each apartment, etc. It is the easiest and lowest cost as you just pay a company or yourself to ratio out the bill each month but certainly is not fair or accurate for obvious reasons. 

@Eric Maury Welcome to the forums! What City are you in? I ask as different states and different cities have laws that prevent you from doing RUBS or require you to do a certain type of meter, etc. RUBS is certainly the lowest cost as there is nothing installed, just labor to divide the bill. The issue with RUBS is how will your tenants react, will one complain saying they are saving water and the other tenant does not? Does one side have a larger family? That side will obviously use more water. Submetering costs really depends on what you want such as local company, automated reading, is your plumbing currently split to each unit or not, etc. Costs are higher for submetering to install but once done prevents complaints of water usage as it is accurate and it increases the property value as you just increased the NOI.

@Ben Davis Welcome! I am active in the same areas you are looking. I live in Waconia. House hacking is certainly a great way to get started, just make sure you still run the numbers to make sure it makes sense as an investment when you move out. My wife and I house hacked a duplex to get started and it made it vary easy to learn the ropes but also to get the next property faster. It is a hot market like everyone says but to me I feel the market is softening just a bit as the rental properties are not selling as fast as last year. We have a duplex on olive st. in Waconia (a little over priced) but nice.  A low cost one in St. Boni... Maybe too far out but Silver Lake has a couple good things on the market and Litchfield has an apartment complex.