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Discovering the average electric bill of an apartment--how?
LadyM
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Registered User regular
Short and sweet: Is there a way to find out average electric bill on apartments whilst scouting them? And would the apartment manager be the one to check with or would I check with the utilities company?
LadyM on
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Make sure to get quotes for every season.
The electric company's information is public domain. Just call up with the address and they should disclose it.
you can ask neighbors too
remember landlords usually have enough inquiries that they don't want someone who can't pay bills! if you ask them the average utility price they will tell you honestly.
There is no guarantee that the landlord won't lie about it to fill his property. Go to the electric company and remove all doubt.
Granted I'm in a low-density high-demand area, but if you are in any area where there is any demand for apartments, the landlord won't lie about this.
He/she isn't TYPICALLY as stupid as Enc would have you believe: he/she wants a reliable tenant, and that involves a tenant who can pay their bills.
If the landlord would lie about this (which they will most certainly know: they've asked previous tenants) then you don't want to rent there.
The other reality is that you are looking for essentially standardized/average pricing. It will be pretty consistent with the type of building & square footage & type of heating.
I'm in the pacific NW, I think our prices tend to be lower because of the hydroelectric dams. (I'm looking at Seattle apartments, if any Seattalites are reading this.
Anyway, thanks for the advice!
I have had landlords and management companies mislead me about the actual statistics in order for their units to seem more favorable. The point I was trying to make is that a simple 5 minute phone call can pull up the actual, unarguable answer while asking your landlord has no guarantee of being accurate. This is actually fairly common, especially in large-scale managed communities where they can explain their lies as statistical/scale errors. While landlords want to fill their properties, telling you that their units are not well insulated or wired does not help them do that. Once they have the lease signed, whether or not you are able to pay electricity is your own problem, and usually a tenant will give up other things like food and services to ensure electricity.
In addition, in Florida recently a lawsuit went before the State Legislature concerning this sort of thing where a landlord did not disclose the proper amount of the electric bill and it was ruled in favor of the landlord (with the judge stating it was the tenant's job to ensure their own electrical fees and information were accurate according to their lease).
In business, it generally isn't a good idea to assume decency. Take the doubt out of the picture and call direct.
100+ a month because of shitty insulation and old appliances.
That sounds closer to what my sister payed when she lived in North Carolina, not needing AC for 8 months of the year is great.
On that note, is there also a third party I can contact to check on wiring for the internets? In eastern Washington Comcast provides a lot (most?) of high speed internet connections, is that also the case in Seattle?
The cable company of your area should be able to confirm if a location has a hookup. Same with the phone/DSL company. Usually you can just go to the local provider and call a hotline they have for this specific purpose.
Just don't get Clearwire.
EDIT: And yes Comcast is pretty common.
Just beware because some cheaper apartment complexes have weird ass satellite cable/internet that sucks in every way possible. My mother had an apartment like this. The place was in south florida and the cable provider's billing address was in Oregon.
Just call up and ask, they will be more than happy to tell you. Same goes for asking about electricity prices, many of these property managers/salespeople actually live on the property anyway so they would know best.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other