RUBS for multi family in Houston

[Luciano A.]

Hello BP investors. Got opportunity to implement RUBS into this small complex. Too old to submeter. Wondering if you have experience with a company servicing Houston and surrounding areas that you would recommend? Any recommendations or suggestions to use or not to use? Average cost? These company’s average Term for their services?

Thanks Luciano 

[Cody L.]

Originally posted by @Kevin Wood:

@Cody L. we've done all bills and done RUBS. We've found that people are more sensitive to advertised rent than to bills included or not included. Usually we've found you can get 50-60% of utilities in additional rent with all bills paid. We have even A/B tested within the same complex. What do you see?

 lol, I've had this fight with my managers 10000000 times on our all bills paid property.  I'd say about 2/3 of my Montrose stuff -- maybe 250 units? -- is all bills paid.   So if I had a unit I wanted to rent for $900 all bills paid, I use to list it for $800 in rent, and then tell them it was $100 for all utillities.  But my managers cry and cry and say people get pissed about us being misleading.  I tell them that $100/month/unit is pretty damn close to what we pay for water/gas/trash/electric on our all bills paid properties.

So I finally gave up.  I list our $900 all bills paid properties as $900.  However, I'm sure there are TONS of people who only want to spend $800 on rent because they're assuming ~$100 for their utility cost that never even see our stuff.   Or people who rent from us for $900 and are expecting to have to pay for their own utils and are then surprised to find out their included (thus leaving money on the table)

So don't do what I do.  :)  I do what I do because I finally caved to my managers and operations staff