Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2016 · 160 posts · 21 votes
Hello, I'm interested in buying a duplex in NE LA and was wondering if anyone knew how I can track down the exact utility costs for a property so I can punch in those numbers to get a better pictures of overall costs.
Property Manager · Pleasanton, CA · Member since 2015 · 97 posts · 65 votes
9y
Hi Mario,
It's going to be very difficult (if not impossible) to get exact utility costs for a property because it will depend on how much the tenant uses the utilities. For your proforma calculations, I recommend calling local property management companies and asking what their utilities run, on average, for small multi-families in the area. You could also ask the seller for their P&L statement, but there's no way to guarantee they're telling the truth. I'd do more research here in the forums to find good rules of thumb for estimating rental property expenses and plug in the most conservative numbers you can find for our area. The company I work for manages approx. 100 units in the LA area and the average expenses for our stabilized properties run around 40% of rental income, less vacancy expense (this does not include principal & interest, and I used three years of data to average out the expenses, so I would figure a bit higher to include all possible capital expenditure items.) If you need help on specific numbers and working out your analysis sheet, please PM me. Best of luck to you!