To save water, have the tenants share the shower, only take one bath a week, flush the toilet only after 5 uses, remove the water meter and replace it with a connector pipe (so no water is being metered), have tenants only use bottle water to drink and cook with, take showers at vacant for sale  houses where you have the key box code (make friends with your local agent), wash up in the morning in the bathroom at a local restaurant or gas station. ;-)OK, I am only kidding.The only appliance you have that can be replace with a higher efficiency unit would be the water heater.Bill the tenants for water use, make copies of the water bill and have the tenants pay per sq. ft. of the space they rent.Water bills for our family properties has always been a problem.Often times the meter is not read or miss-readIf you have your own meters installed, the burden is that you have to read it every quarter.

You seem to be thinking only in %'s however some items cost the same no matter the cost of the property (washing machine). 

Realtor's Top 10 Housing Markets Positioned for Growth in 2022 Rank* Metro 1 Salt Lake City, Utah 2 Boise City, Idaho 3 Spokane-Spokane Valley, Wash. 4 Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, Ind. 5 Columbus, Ohio 6 Providence-Warwick, R.I.

My advice would be to make sure your property makes a good first impression - pressure wash and touch up the paint on the outside of the building, take care of the landscaping and clean the building on the inside, but don't do much more.  

They even made me power wash the vinyl siding on one of my homes that I thought looked pretty good.

Such disclaimers are nothing but eye wash.

What the blah, blah, blah was, he was saying it's political, a click, a good ole boy network, if they like the looks of the tenant.

I charged 50.00 to 125.00 to clean a stove.. bathtub 30 to 45, fridge 35 to 45, floors per room sweep and wash 15.00  per window and tracks 15.00 light bulbs replace 3.00 each. blinds 15.00 to 35.00 each to replace.

All we did was pressure wash it. 

Eventually, I want apartment complexes and car washes!