Every expense line in a building fights you at renewal time. Water is the one line that has never once come down.
In most New York City multifamily buildings, the owner pays the water and sewer bill. There are no individual apartment meters in the older stock, so the resident never sees a water bill and has no incentive to use less. Every gallon runs through one building account, and that account is yours.
The rate is set by the New York City Water Board, and it moves in one direction. Effective July 1, 2026, metered rates rose 6.0% for fiscal year 2027. DEP's own rate report puts the typical metered multifamily unit at about 52,000 gallons a year, which now works out to roughly $964 per unit per year, up from about $909 the year before. The sewer charge is 159% of the water charge, which means the sewer half of the bill is bigger than the water half. That number has compounded year after year for as long as I have been in this business.
But the rate is not really what moves the bill. Volume is. And volume leaks out of buildings in the quietest ways: a toilet that never fully stops filling, a shower valve that drips overnight, a supply line feeding a common laundry that runs around the clock. A single running toilet can waste hundreds of gallons a day. You do not feel it until the quarterly DEP bill arrives and the number is 20% above where it should be.
The fix is boring and cheap, which is exactly why I like it. During every unit turn, the super checks flappers, fill valves, and aerators the same way they check the paint and the locks. High-efficiency toilets and showerheads pay for themselves in a year or less at current rates. When a bill comes in hot, I want to know which building and which quarter, and then someone walks the floors listening for running water. It is not glamorous. It is how the bill stays flat.
There are also programs that help. DEP runs a Multifamily Conservation Program that lets buildings with meters and qualifying water-efficient fixtures lock in a flat per-unit rate instead of riding the metered rate, and the Leak Forgiveness Program can adjust a bill when unusual, above-normal consumption comes from a leak you found and fixed. If you own in this city and have not looked at either, you are leaving money on the table.
When I underwrite, water gets its own escalation line, and I do not use general inflation. I assume it keeps rising around 5% or more a year, because that is what the history shows. It is a small line relative to taxes or payroll, but it is the line I can control least with negotiation and most with management. Most owners treat it as a fixed cost. I treat it as a plumbing problem with a budget behind it.
← All insights