All Forum Posts by: M Parsa

This is all excellent advice, I thought you had to have the utility company do something like this, but perhaps not. I will look into whether a plumbing contractor could do it for less. Probably they will be able to. I plan to keep the property a long time, at least 20 years, so I think I will try to find some way to get it done. I know I could raise the rent, but I think tenants look at the actual rent cost more so than utility costs, so raising the rent would probably make it harder to rent. The area itself is very mixed use, I think that tenants would be willing to pay water (like they already do for the other utilities). But I would only do this with new tenants not the current ones.

I own a property with two duplexes and a house that are all on the same water meter. I spoke to the utility company and they said to split it up and put an individual meter on each unit would cost at most $8000. I am paying $250/month in water and would like to have the next tenants cover all the utilities not just gas/electric. I plan to hold this property for the long term. Do you think it would be a good move to install the individual meters?

I have negotiated a deal that is in escrow, but I just found this site and now I am not sure I should do this, I could back out or renegotiate, potentially losing my $1K earnest money. This is a 9 unit property in El Paso, TX on 0.84 acres with 5 single family homes and 2 duplexes, most have nice fenced yards and garages. They are all in very good condition and currently rented with mostly long term tenants at under market value in a fairly low income, but popular area with virtually no vacancies.

Here are the numbers

Total monthly expenses-utilities, prop management fees, insurance, taxes= 1564
Total monthly income 4850

My mortgage payment is 2448/m 15 year fixed.

I am planning to buy and hold (save for retirement, I am currently 41).

I am putting 100K down.

This will give a cash flow of around $800/month which I plan to save for potential additional expenses. According to the 50% rule, I will likely need much more than this to cover potential expenses.

Any thoughts on this deal would be greatly appreciated!

Mike