You may find that everyone in your area pays their own water, but the seller offered "utilities included".

There's no HOA and currently, the tenants are paying for their own utilities (Water, Sewer, Trash, Electric), which may be why the rents are on the low side for the area.

Is this copper tubing in a forced hot water system that failed?

Come to think of it, if I, for example, dropped a trap door from the unit I'm living in now down to the basement, not only could I live down there and rent out the unit I'm living in now, but I could choose who was going to live there based on any qualities I wanted at all, since technically they'd be my "roommate" and not my "tenant."

My standards are dropping so low, I could get myself in over my head.

when I built my duplex last Nov. 2013, I installed an extra water meter.

I was sitting here brainstorming ways to apply some of the outsourcing principles to my involvement as a new investor and thought I'd go public, since many minds are always better than one.So far I have a small list going, but would love to hear if you all have any other ways you have put either outsourcing, or any other 4HWW (muse creation, 80/20 rule, etc.) into your real estate businesses.Here's what I've come up with so far:Virtual Assistant (VA) tasks:screening MLS for potential dealsyellow letter campaignsGoogle Adwords tracking and implementationmanaging tenant screening process (background checks, tenant checks, etc.)tracking down absentee property ownersgenerating a list of every commercial building owner in your towncollection and aggregation of data in due diligence process for a commercial purchaseresearching cash buyers in targeted markets identifying common expense items in a new market (trash, electric, water, property tax rates, etc.)What else might make sense?

@Antonio Chasten I'm in for a coffee meet up, however I'm not into colored water and only like real coffee J/K.. any place is good for me, just need the time and place and I will be there!

Because it is bank owned and winterized, we cannot turn on the water.

Unfortunately in my city you can only have one water meter per parcel so on my multi's I'm stuck with a water/sewer/trash bill of about $60/month/unit which on sub $500/month units would be a huge percentage of the cash flow.