Cost of Submetering

General Real Estate Investing
1

Hello, we are in the process of buying a complex that is all bills paid.
I was wondering if anyone had a rough idea of how much it costs per unit if I were to:

  1. Submeter electricity
  2. Submeter gas
  3. Submeter water

Thanks for any anyone could give.

-Andy

2

Enough to not buy the building.

Water, the average meter around here is $250 per unit. Then you have to move plumbing around.

Electric, new services for each unit averaging $800 each. Plus moving wiring.

Heat, depends you may have to put new heating sources in each unit.

I manage a commericial building, that wanted to all have their own water. The job would have been fairly easy. We were quoted over $7000 for 5 units.

3

I agree.

This is not something you’d want to take on unless your doing a near gut-renovation. Much of it will have to be rewired and replumbed which is extremely cumbersome for the contractors when your trying to salvage the walls, floors, and ceilings. It never hurts to get a few quotes though…

4

Ouch…

5

Thanks for the advice. The all bills paid numbers work for the apartments.
We wanted to look at ways to gradually decrease the expenses over time.
The electricity is the biggest expense so I will focus on that first.
I was thinking more of 500-600 per unit…Then there is the real world.

If you have any honest and fair contacts for electrical sub-metering in the dallas area, I would appreciate any info.

Thanks, Andy.