Do you want to lower your multifamily utility expenses?
Heating, cooling, water, and any other utility expenses can be a drain on your budget and reduce your NOI.
To reduce utility expenses, you can make costly improvements (like replacing windows or upgrading insulation). But, that’s not the only way you can lower your utility costs. Smart devices (like thermostats or lights) can help you optimize utility usage to lower your expenses – without requiring expensive retrofits.
Wondering how to reduce your utility expenses the easy way? That’s what we’ll cover in this post. First, let’s look at why you should reduce your multifamily utility usage.
Why does lowering your multifamily utility usage matter?
Lowering your utility usage can save you money. But, that’s not the only benefit. Here are the top reasons lower utilities matter for your multifamily building.
Save money
The most obvious benefit of lower utility usage is saving money. By lowering your HVAC, lighting, water, and other utility-related costs, you can save thousands. This can help you boost your NOI and focus your budget on other high-value expenses.
Help the environment
Another benefit of lower utilities is helping the environment. Real estate is a huge contributor to climate change. Reducing your electricity, gas, and water usage can reduce your carbon footprint and help the environment.
Attract residents
Environmental sustainability is increasingly important to residents. Lowering your utility usage and improving energy efficiency can show residents that you care about the environment. This can help you attract more residents who will pay more to live in an environmentally friendly building.
How can you lower your utility usage and bills?
Here are five easy steps to help you lower your utility bills with smart device management:
Step 1: Choose a device management platform
The first step for lowering your utility usage is choosing a smart device management platform. This platform will help you control smart devices like thermostats and lights to minimize energy usage.
You can either choose a standalone device management platform or a complete operations platform. A standalone platform only helps you manage smart devices. If you want to manage other aspects of your property (like maintenance or resident communication), you’ll need additional tech.
A complete property and device management platform helps you manage all of your day-to-day operations – like vendor invoicing, rental agreements, inspections, and more. This end-to-end platform also helps you control smart devices throughout your property. An all in one platform can consolidate your tech stack – making it cheaper and easier to use.
When choosing a device management platform, you also need to consider connectivity. Some platforms only work with certain devices (like Z-Wave or Zigbee devices). Other platforms are device agnostic. This type of platform works with nearly every smart device. If you want the flexibility to choose the right devices for your property, a device agnostic platform is the way to go.
Step 2: Choose your smart devices
After you choose your smart device management platform, you need to choose your smart devices. For example, smart thermostats can help you cut down on HVAC expenses by only heating or cooling occupied spaces. Smart lights can reduce electricity usage by automatically turning off lights when no one is in the room.
Whatever devices you choose, you should make sure they’re compatible with your device management platform. If they’re not compatible, you won’t have access to the utility reducing and money-saving smart features.
Step 3: Manage common areas
Now that you have your smart devices, you can start managing utilities throughout your building. One area you can manage is common areas.
Heating, cooling, and lighting common areas no one is using needlessly drives up your utility costs. With smart device management, you can easily reduce HVAC and lighting usage in rooms you notice are empty.
Along with manual management, some smart device management software can automatically reduce HVAC and lighting in unoccupied rooms. You choose the temperature or light mode you want for empty common areas. Then, the software will automatically adjust the temperature and lighting when it senses an empty common area. Automatically reducing utility usage in common areas can save your building thousands.
Step 4: Manage unoccupied units
Another area you can reduce utility usage is in unoccupied units. Most of the time, unoccupied units can be set to lower HVAC usage and lights turned off. When prospective residents tour empty units, you need HVAC and lights set to a comfortable level.
But, it can be hard to remember to turn up and down your HVAC and lights. This can lead to high utilities or uncomfortable prospects.
A device management platform can automatically turn the temperature and lights to a comfortable setting for prospects. Once prospects leave, this software can turn the temperature/lights back to a money-saving setting – all with no work for you or your team. This automation can help you significantly reduce your multifamily utilities.
Step 5: Manage occupied units
Residents generally set and pay for utilities in their units. While lower utility usage in occupied units won’t impact your utility bill, it will reduce your building’s environmental impact.
With smart device management software, residents can set the temperature, turn on and off lights, and more from their smartphones. This makes it easy for residents to set schedules to minimize utility usage. And, residents can manage their utilities even when they’re not home – making it a breeze to reduce utility usage and bills.
By helping residents manage their utilities, you can boost resident satisfaction with lower bills. You can also make your building more environmentally friendly, which can attract more residents.
Lower your multifamily utilities with BeHome247
Reducing your multifamily utility usage can save you thousands. It can also help the environment and attract more residents. But, many common ways to lower your utility usage require expensive retrofits.
An easier way to reduce your multifamily utilities is with smart device management. Smart devices (like thermostats or lights) can help you optimize utilities. Plus, smart devices can help you only use energy for heating, cooling, lighting, and other utilities when people are occupying spaces.
If you’re looking for the best smart device management platform to lower your multifamily utilities, BeHome247 is the way to go. BeHome247 is a device agnostic platform. So, you can use any smart device you want with the platform.
Plus, BeHome247 device management includes automation to make it a breeze to manage utilities for common areas and unoccupied units. BeHome247 also has a tenant mobile app that allows tenants to manage utilities right from their smartphones.
Along with device management, BeHome247 is also a complete operations platform for residential and hospitality properties. With BeHome247, you can manage every aspect of operations, communication, and the tenant/guest experience. BeHome247 can automate all of your day-to-day operations – like maintenance, tenant/guest communication, vendor management, invoicing, and more.
Whether you’re looking for just smart device management or a complete property and device management platform, BeHome247 has what you need.
Sign up for your BeHome247 demo today to learn more about how to reduce utility usage and save money with smart device management.
