Hi Jenny,
There are many answers to your questions - the most appropriate being 'whatever is best for your situation'. Generally speaking, when you establish student accomodation, you will need to make it all inclusive. The kids like to know exactly what their accomodation costs are going to be rather than worry about paying bills each month. As well, imagine the nightmare in the house when it came time to chase everyone for their 1/9th share of an electricity or water bill !!! Realistically, you need to asses all the costs associated with owning this type of property and factor those costs into your rents.
Here's what we do:
1.
Electricity. We pay for electricity. This can be a significant cost, so you may want to try and reduce your power bill in a few ways. I recommend supplying your own energy efficient column oil heaters. This will ensure the tenants don't go any buy their own electric fan or bar heaters that are very expensive to run. Also, you will want to look at having gas HWS and cooking. I'd also recommend NOT putting a dryer in the house. Students are basically lazy creatures who will run a dryer 24/7 regardless of whether the sun is shining and it is 35 degrees outside (I should know, I was like that when I was a student!).
2.
Water. We also pay for water. Look at installing economical shower heads and a front load washing machine. They both still do the job, but save water.
3.
Phones/Internet. You have a few options. Firstly phones. We run one common line into the house that has call restrictions. We then encourage the kids to use Telstra or Optus calling cards or their mobiles. You could also put a pay phone in the house, and maybe even a phone card vending machine if you want. Its up to you. So far, no problems with our method. As for internet, I'd recommend looking at installing some sort of net access into the house. A lot of students demand it these days. We haven't, but four of the tenants pay for their own phone line into the house which they have connected to a LAN. And, with broadband these days, you don't even need a second line. Be careful if you choose to pay for net access - it may cost you a lot. I certainly wouldn't do it.
4.
Cleaning. Once again, whatever you need to keep the place clean. We pay $50 per fortnight for about two hours cleaning. The cleaners do all the common areas - kitchen, bathrooms, lounge, dining, hall, entry. Between cleans, the tenants keep the place tidy. They are responsible for their own rooms, and for cleaning up after themselves in the kitchen. They are responsible for providing their own crocery and cutlery which is a motivator to clean up so they can eat their nexxt meal. As well, we rely on a few of the clean and tidy tenants to keep on the case of the untidy lads (two IT geek students
) to clean up after themselves. We also pay for regular pest control, (but I do that for my own home anyway).
Yep, 20% is pretty good money, but of course the costs are higher with this kind of rental. Even so, if you can pull 20% or so gross on a student rental, then the net returns are still going to be worthwhile.
