Rent with or without utilities?

Question

So how is everyone pricing out their units when house hacking? For example: do yall price rooms on the affordable side and have tenants pay their share of utilities by splitting the bill?

Or do yall charge each unit a little more on the higher end side and include all the utilities to save yourself the hassle?

or do you price each unit what its worth and still split the utilities evenly among the tenants?

and if you do split utilities what are some of your formulas that you use to go about it?

TIA 🙏🏽

Trevor Dominique · Answer

I have one triplex that is not submetered so I pay all the utilities and adjust the rents upward to offset this cost.

I just make sure that when a unit turns over, the "utilities included" part stands out and is at the top of the listing in big font. That gets prospects mentally prepared to see the higher rent amount. If the rent were the 1st thing they saw and "Utilities included" was put at the bottom of the listing, a lot of people would not even read the rest of the listing if they think the unit is out of there budget range.

Dan Guenther · Answer

@Daniel Kevin Lara

Welcome to the community! I was actually born and raised in Rochester, I'd love to connect next time I'm back home.

Personally, I'd recommend just averaging out your monthly utilities for the year and including that in your rent prices. This just makes it easier all around and one less thing for you to have to worry about at the end of the month.

Will Fraser · Answer

Hi @Daniel Kevin Lara, I'm going to assume from your question that none of your utilities are individually metered (a bummer, since that simplifies this scenario a LOT).

I would work out the historic averages for the utilities and split the average among my tenants, either:

- Split it evenly not factoring in my usage (i.e. they pay the full share) OR

- Split it evenly between ALL residents and add a surcharge to give some buffer or padding.  This is functionally a "handling fee", and not something I would share with anyone else, just my internal notes.  So, tenants would have a $110 (for example) flat utility fee collected alongside rent each month, which covers their share of the averaged-out utility costs.

Bud Gaffney · Answer

@Daniel Kevin Lara always without.

Daniel Kevin Lara · Answer

Yea im all for it man. Just give me a heads up and we can definitely link up.

Dan Guenther · Answer

@Daniel Kevin Lara

Should be home for Christmas this year. Would be fun to meet up for a holiday beverage somewhere downtown!

Daniel Kevin Lara · Answer

Lets do it man, ilook forward to it! Any idea of when you will be coming back to visit?

Daniel Kevin Lara · Answer

Thank you alll. They were all very helpful tips and definitely going to put one of these in action and see what works out best.

Rent with or without utilities?

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