Hi Guys,

Curious if anyone has ever done the following. We recently purchased our first large multi in Manchester NH (13 units). And given the existing structure had to rent it as all utilities included. The good news is we have been able to increase Rents by 30%+ on existing units! ...now we just put two more large multis in same city under agreement and started running what we call ghost ads (Craigslist, fb market, etc to gauge interest prior to close at different prices points, verbage etc). These buildings are all separately metered and have a energy efficient Reinhart heater in each unit, One ad has apartments at $1450 and no utilities included. The other is at $1750 all utilities included.  The intrest is four to one at the $1750 price. This got me wondering, can we provide "all utilities included" but cap it at a certain price point before the excess goes back to tennant?

Thank you for any reply!

I have been considering this. It would have to be disclosed in the lease and might not be legal in all cities. I was planing on saying all utilities included up to X amount of gas and x kilowatts used. If the property exceeds that x amount there will be a fee of x per whatever used. I think I could make additional profit on energy efficient homes. 

I have only had the property with this issue for a month. I reviewed the utilities for the past few years and figured the average then raised my estimated rent by that much plus a margin of protection. In this case say Gas was 25 a month I raised it to 35. 

I rented the 3 vacant units in a couple days. 

We have been moving all of our buildings over to sub-metering for water so we can charge the tenants for their usage. Its great in the cost savings but I would keep in mind in your situation you would then have to track usage, bills, payments etc. All adds to overhead. Just a thought.