Operating expenses
Owner-Paid Utilities
Monthly utilities the owner covers — water/sewer, trash, sometimes gas. Most SFRs put utilities on the tenant; multi-family deals often split them.
Why Owner-Paid Utilities matters
On multi-family without separate meters, utilities can be $200-500/mo of NOI killer. Sub-metering or RUBS (Ratio Utility Billing) is one of the highest-ROI improvements you can make to a small multi-family.
How to check Owner-Paid Utilities before you rely on it
Ask the seller for twelve months of actual utility bills for each account the owner pays, and confirm which meters serve which units. In a multi-unit building without separate meters, water, sewer, trash, and common-area electricity usually stay with the owner, and heating may too. Check the lease terms to see which utilities the tenant is required to pay and whether a ratio billing program is allowed by local rules. Enter the owner-paid total from the bills, not the listing, and note that a single leaking fixture or a cold winter can move it by hundreds of dollars a month.
Related terms
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Where Owner-Paid Utilities shows up in TrueCap
Operating expenses are line items in the analyzer's expense section, each labeled with its source — a HUD or FRED benchmark, a TrueCap default you can replace, or your own number. Property tax is always your local figure. Together they produce NOI and cash flow after reserves, and the results view shows how much each one moves the decision.