Real Estate owners always run the risk of having a high amenities’ bill. There is a fine balance between keeping expenses down and avoiding conflict with the renters.
Any drastic changes that saves money without causing any major inconvenience, resentment, or the loss of customer satisfaction is a 100% win.
Case Study
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The owner of a property with 12 rooms for long term rental had an ongoing problem with a high amenities bill. Specifically, the monthly water bill would be run up to a ridiculous amount. This expense was putting a considerable dent in the monthly profits being made.
The homeowner attempted to ask the tenants to cut back on the usage of water, but repeated conversations were rendered futile. A couple of letters were sent out with the same result.
Analyze
A team was tasked to tackle the high-water bill issue without losing tenants and causing dissatisfaction. The meeting was successful, and they came up with a few suggestions.
· Reduce number of available showers
· Reduces rental from offloading water bill
· Updated contracts to state they water bill would be split among the renters
Improvements
The most strategic solution was reducing the number of showers from 5 to 2. Reducing the number of showers caused the renters to schedule their time of usage. Having a schedule allowed quick and smooth transitions between shower users.
Shower became as quick as possible. Short showers helped the morning workers get out the door faster. This decision influenced an organic savings by reducing time being spent in the shower and volume of water usage.
Updating rental terms to divide the water bill among the renters caused an immediate drop in water usage. Now the renters felt a sense of responsibility towards saving water. By saving water, it saved them money.
The opportunity for the renter to save funds created goodwill. Taking 80% of the average water bill cost and subtracting that from the past rental gave the new amount to be charged. This caused renter to see immediate potential for savings.
These few changes give the renters more control. What a simple, yet brilliant way to solve a problem.
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