Contributed by the Team at LIVABLE

Billing residents for water and other utilities has benefits! Property owners can offset their expenses while encouraging conservation. Here are some of the things you need to be aware of when it comes to billing your tenants for utilities.

Great news! If you’ve decided to start billing your tenants for their utility use, you’re not only making them financially accountable for their utility use, you’re also making them environmentally accountable.  Public concern about global warming exceeds 50% among most demographic subgroups of Americans, according to Gallup. People are growing increasingly concerned about the environment, and increasingly interested in ways that they can help. In a 2021 Mastercard survey, 85% of people said that they were willing to take personal action to combat environmental and sustainability challenges. Scaling back water and energy use is great for the environment, but it’s not easy to get people motivated to do that.

Here’s a checklist for keeping your fire and life safety systems ready in the event of a disaster.

By Steve Goyette, Vice President, Telgian Fire Safety Services

Fire and life safety for small apartment buildings includes a wide variety of measures, many of which are more than capably handled by on-site management personnel.  Here are some general categories to consider, along with specific actions that can improve preparedness in the event of an emergency.

By Brittany Benz

Having solid relationships with your residents and owners is key to your success as a property manager, but did you know it is also critical when it comes to your vendors?

When you think of vendors, your relationship might not be the first thing that comes to mind, but it should be. Why? Because having vendors who respond promptly and resolve maintenance problems efficiently will ensure happy renters and owners.

IROs and small property management businesses are always looking for ways to recruit top talent for their teams. But even without the resources of a large, coordinated HR department, small, independent businesses can still play to their strengths. Let’s look at the ways you can position your business to compete with larger talent competitors.

1. Look outside the property management industry for talent

Industry experience is always a plus. If all other qualifications were equal, relevant job history should obviously come into play. However, if you’re only looking at applicants who have worked in property management, you’re missing out on the vast majority of candidates. This is especially true for entry-level positions or office positions with transferrable skills.

By Roderick Wright, California State Senator (Retired)

Listen to any political discussion today and apart from inflation and crime, the dual crisis of homelessness and the lack of affordable housing will be front and center.  There have been numerous solutions thrown around, but none that I’ve ever heard truly addresses the problem.  Mark Twain once said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”  Housing and homelessness have been handled about the same way as the talk about weather, only with a lot of squandered money. 

By Jack Humphreville, L.A. Watchdog for CityWatch

Yet despite these record revenues, the City and other insiders are considering ballot measures and fee increases that cost us over $1 billion a year. 

In May, United to House LA announced that it delivered about 100,000 signatures to the City Clerk to qualify a measure for the November ballot that will create the Los Angeles Program to Prevent Homelessness and Fund Affordable Housing.   The proponents expect this Flip Tax to raise over $800 million a year by levying a 4% tax on sales of commercial and residential properties over $5 million, and 5.5% on sales north of $10 million. These funds would be used to “provide immediate support to people experiencing homelessness, and those at risk of homelessness, in the form of rental assistance, emergency income support, and access to permanent housing.” 

As part of San Francisco’s data mining campaign, landlords will be required to share reams of information about their residential properties with the Rent Board. Only owners of buildings with 10 or more residential units need to report information at this juncture.

Time flies at warp speed. While it seems like it was ages ago, San Francisco lawmakers passed Ordinance No. 265, which became effective on January 18, 2021, and requires landlords to report certain information about their units to the Rent Board. Only now do we have to deal with it.

By Christopher Miller, MBA

Specialized Wealth Management

June 1, 2022

I have been helping my clients make real estate investments for 20 years now.  I think that a big part of our success comes from buying in the right areas.  I prefer to invest in growing metropolitan areas because I think that a growing population – and therefore growing pool of renters for our apartments and shoppers at our tenants’ stores, gives us as investors the best chance at success.

How Do We Find Growing Areas?

I spend a lot of time reviewing the government’s US Census results.  This data tells me that the US population grew by 7.5%, or at a 0.7% annual rate, between 2010 and 2021.  As of the 2020 Census; the US population was 331,449,281, so our country – through immigration and births – is gaining an additional 2,320,144 residents on an annual basis.  That’s roughly the population of the Orlando, Florida metro area.  So: this data tells us that we will need to build the equivalent of the Orlando, Florida metro area every year in the United States to give all these new residents somewhere to live, work and shop.

By Kari Negri, Chief Executive Officer, SKY Property Management

Dear Kari,  How can I rent my vacant units faster?  Alyssa C., Sherman Oaks

I think with all the options out there, it is sometimes easy to forget some very basic things that are vital to renting your vacant units.  One of the most important things you can do to rent your vacancies faster is to answer the phone.  If you love your building, answering phone calls always comes across positively, and is one of the biggest reasons a person will rent from you – sometimes it’s just about how you handle incoming calls. 

By Jack Humphreville, L.A. Watchdog for CityWatch

Multiple levels of government, including the City and County of Los Angeles, enacted eviction moratoriums because of the adverse financial impact the pandemic had on the health and incomes of families and their ability to pay their rents on a timely basis.  This was an appropriate response as we did not want to see fellow Angelenos tossed out of their homes and onto the streets. 

While many renters continued to meet their monthly obligations, others did not have the resources to pay their rents in full.  This put the owners of rental properties, including “mom and pop” landlords who own many rental units in the City and County, in a precarious financial position because of this unfunded mandate.  As owners, both large and small, were being shortchanged on their rental income, they still had to pay their mortgages, real estate taxes, utilities, and other fixed operating expenses.  This has caused considerable hardship, as some owners lost their properties to foreclosure while others were forced to sell at a low-ball price.