How are Chicagoland multifamily owners handling the increases in water bills and re taxes?
Chicago has basically doubled water bills and most re taxes have increased substantially over the past year, any tips on how to handle these increases?
[{"id": "euedjvm", "text": "A combination of:\n\n- Eat it\n\n- Pass it on to tenants\n\n- Reduce water usage", "replies": [{"id": "euedzmx", "text": "in what ways can you pass it on to tenants in multi unit building? separately metered doesn't seem remotely feasible for most buildings.", "replies": [{"id": "euepb8j", "text": "Tenants pay a pro-rata share of the water bill. Or, water charges (or the increase in water charges) can be passed on to tenants via Common Area Maintenance charges. Ultimately, a tenant can only afford to pay so much rent though, so it ultimately comes out of a building's rental income over the long term as tenant's leases roll.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}, {"id": "euevpm2", "text": "Rent goes up in general. It doesn't differentiate between the savers and the spenders, but I'm reminded of the security deposit vs. move in fee. Particularly with RE taxes, you can even link to the website so they can see it as a matter of public record. It's also happening all over, so I've had tenants make noise then realize that it's not just a shakedown and stay. Causes turnover, and I've lost tenants that I didn't want to lose for ones I'm less happy about, but business is business.  \n\n\nETA: and in situations where you can, like if there's a commercial unit, it's always some sort of net or modified net. Even without a separate meter you can come up with an agreeable percentage.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "euekfly", "text": "Yeah, I raised rent by like 50$ and i'm thinking of maybe getting tank less water heaters. For the property taxes, I've started the process of filing for different exemption.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "eugpih1", "text": "Most LL's will just pass these through to the tenant's as a rent increase. The people who make these RE laws don't really understand how the business works so in theory they think the LL will absorb it but it really just ends up hurting the tenants unfortunately. For the water, they use \"RUBS\" ratio utility billing system that pro rates the use to each tenant and that water increase will simply be worked into that monthly billing cycle.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]