This is one reason that I look for apartment buildings WITHOUT central air/heat pump.

Example: pay the teannt's heat for the first two months of the lease.

It forced us to pay the utilities (complicated by the fact that the house was heated by oil) and then bill each tenant based on their square footage which was agreed to in the lease.

Heat was on in a couple minutes & cost me $75.

Meaning tenants will move out because the old windows make it unaffordable to heat or cool or the walls are not sound proof and you will alway get complains about noise.

It's better to have slow payers in a building than to have a bunch of vacancies and have to pay the heat bill.

Profit margins aside, a lot of flips in my area feature very similar fixtures, design elements, etc.

Like they are going to use any rifle against a Cobra with heat detection and firing a missle at you from 10 miles away, how insane!

The lessor but still important issues beyond this could be are the utilities separated, is the heating and ac up to date,are there plumbing repairs or electrical repairs that need to be done.

John,both properties are to expensive the second you must pay the heat thats very expensive even with the 50% rule I don't see an very good deal here.