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What Can (& Should) Your Palm Springs Property Manager Be Doing About Water?

Written by Posted On Thursday, 29 October 2015 12:23
What Can (& Should) Your Palm Springs Property Manager Be Doing About Water?

Whether you’re managing a couple of apartments with your cousin Vinny or manning a vast real estate empire the most recent changes to water conservation rules – and the emergency order from the governor are going to affect you.

Fines and all kinds of pending rate hikes are a near certainty for most of us and mitigating the damage to your business is going to take some planning. Reducing the entire state’s water use by 25 percent is going to cause some headaches, and if you’re behind the ball, it could be even worse. If you are a property manager, or you’ve hired one or plan to hire a property manager, these are the least of the things you need to worry about.

If you, and your cousin Vinny, are managing a collection of places from the kitchen table then you really do need to be aware of the rules. One of the chief reasons that property owners will hire a professional property management team is always going to be that they are simply better able to adhere to local ordinances, restrictions or regulations. Water use and conservation rules fall squarely into the field of new and barely understood regulatory areas.

In short, these are the most important things you or your property manager should be doing to address the fourth year of California’s severe water crisis.

1) Make All Tenants Aware of the Rules and Consequences of Inaction

All your tenants need to be aware of the most basic rules and that their rent and utilities bills are at risk of steep hikes if they fail to reduce water usage. A hard copy of regulations should accompany tips for in-home water use reduction and should be distributed to all current tenants.

2) Introduce Rules and Regulations as Standard Operating Procedure to New Tenants

This is important, because new tenants are much easier to change in terms of habitual behaviors than are existing tenants. Ultimately, even with a very property manager, the owner is paying the utilities. Even you’re only reviewing expenses quarterly, water and sewage will probably be more expensive down the road, so working with a property manager who can not only pay the bills, but actively work to reduce costs is crucial.

3) Audit

If not individual tenants, then you should at least audit properties for water use and to identify sources of water waste or over-use. This is often the first step toward reducing overall water consumption but it can also depend on accurate record keeping. Then again, how else are you going to know if water consumption is falling? If your property manager is handling your utilities bills, work with them so that benchmarks are established and goals can be reached. Then see #1 and #2 above and send quarterly reminders to tenants on water use and conservation tips.

4) Plan for Retrofitting

Aerators on the faucets, low-flow shower heads and water saving toilets are going to be vital, particularly in older properties. You may not be able to do this all at once, so look at how your property manager is dealing with other properties. Many of them incorporate retro-fitting seamlessly as a part of the normal tenant turnover procedure. But you should expect a plan from your property manager. There’s no question that retrofitting now will be less expensive than penalties for over-consumption in the future.

5) Convert to Low-Water Landscaping

This can be extremely important for larger developments, but for freestanding houses, it’s not an area you want overlooked. Shaggy brown grass is just not going to get rented. And keeping it green is no longer going to be an option. Your property manager should be familiar with good, even great, landscaping contractors who will do the job without a complete garden rehab. And tenants do appreciate the results.

6) Participate

Water reuse and reclamation projects often require cooperation, shared planning and responsibility and agreements between a whole range of stakeholders. Work with a property manager who is already involved. These kinds of agreements and joint-projects are going to become increasingly common and increasingly vital for keeping everyone’s costs as low as possible.

The Greater Palms Springs area is taking the drought on the chin. In some ways, we’re better prepared to face the drought than some other normally much more verdant areas of the state. But there are still cutbacks and conservation measures to be taken. There are also lots and lots of new plans for shared responsibility for greywater use, reclamation and stormwater collection. All of these areas are growth areas for the property management industry and that you should expect your property manager to be knowledgeable about and positively engaged with, now.

 

 

 

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Shammy John

Shammy is an Real Estate Agent and Write an article on Real Estate, Home Insurance, Home Owner.

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