City water/sewer # breakdown

In contract on a 40 lot park of which 31 are occupied. The park is submetered but pays for water up to 5k gallons/mo. Usage comes in around ~4000 gallons/mo/lot, which seems ok. That being said, total cost averages about $75/mo/lot, of which $45 is W and $30 is S, on lot rent of $325, or 23%. That translates into about $0.0115 per gallon for W and $0.0085 per gallon for S, so ~$0.02 total. Rent should be higher but I wouldn’t be able to get away with anything crazy. W/S prices have increased 6%+ and 8.4%+, respectively, annually over the past 5 years. Everything else on the park is exactly what you want (strong market, city owns/maintains roads, etc). Are people out there really still seeing $40-50/lot averages for W/S combined? Any thoughts are much appreciated.

Those rates seem somewhat on the high end to me. We have a park where 4,000 gallons of just water would run you about $20 (direct billed). Another where 4,000 gallons of water/sewer would run you roughly $41. However, we also have a park where 4,000 gallons of water/sewer would run you nearly $107. The rest are between $41 and $107.

Have you considered billing back just the water as your “rent raise”? Our parks where we have sub-metered average roughly 3,000-3,500 gallons of usage per unit. It cuts your cost $45 per unit but doesn’t raise their living expenses by that same amount. You could always come in the next year and start billing for sewer if you wanted to split it up between two years.

I like that approach a lot. And I can provide details of water price increases as evidence. And tenants remain in control so probably easier than even a lower straight rent raise. Thank you sir!

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Cheers

Hello,

Southern Water Management is a utility sub-metering company. Our typical sub-metered mobile home park averages 2500 gallons of water/sewer use per home (while your averaging 4000). Why not lower your rents by the cost of 2500 gallons, and turn over the cost (and future increases) of water/sewer to your residents. Residents “conserving water” there is no net change, while high users will pay more. Noting when residents pay directly for their own water use, water use drops by 25 to 35%, and in most states the monthly billing fee ($3 to $5) is paid by the resident, so there is no out of pocket cost to the owner.
We’re here to answer your water sub-metering questions.

Sincerely
Dan Helton
President
Southern Water Management
727-827-4509, cell # 727-421-9695
Dan@SouthernWaterManagement.com
http://SouthernWaterManagement

For public systems we see 20-32 monthly for sewer & storm sewer combined, and then 7-15 monthly for water usage.
That said-
sewer is 2 parts, usage is the ‘regular’ sewer, and then there is ‘storm’ sewer. That is rain runoff and is calculated on sq foot, not usage.
Also- water tap fees are rated based on the size of the tap, and how they classify the user. Each tap has a monthly fee, and then a usage charge.
You will need to survey your area to see what others are charging, but if you have room under the combined charges you should leave space rent be and sub meter / allocate the utility charges. We allocate sewer, storm sewer, trash and sub meter water usage in all of our parks. One thing we have seen is when people get their own bill, the usage goes way down.