A property must take into account multiple utilities – some properties have more than others. If you recently bought a house in Houston, the usual utilities are likely to describe your monthly expenses. Now taxes are self-recurring real estate costs, as is the fee of your homeowners association.
We exclude taxes and HOA fees from this list because technically they are not utilities, although you have to pay them regularly. However, you can expect three main utilities – the averages used in this article can be found on this site.
Garbage and gas
You can pay for recycling if you want. For garbage and recycling, you can expect around $ 14 a month in Houston – that's the national average. Gasoline costs an average of $ 72.10 domestically, but you can expect these costs to be a bit lower due to the region's regular heat.
It is rarely cold enough that you need so much gas in Texas. So if you budget with the national average, you'll be ahead of the budget every year.
Water and sewerage
You can expect your monthly water bill to be around $ 70.39. In the meantime, your $ 51.44 monthly wastewater bill will be slightly above the national average in Houston, provided 8,000 gallons are flushed monthly – for a family. Of course, you can reduce this number if you take care to keep the number of bathroom visits as low as possible.
Rain barrels can also be used to lower your water bill. However, if you invest in something like a rain barrel, you won't see a return on investment for a few months or years because the cost of rain barrels, filtering equipment, and clean hoses will cost you a few hundred dollars. But after you install the system, you can save a few hundred dollars a year.
Electricity and technology
When it comes to electricity, you don't just want to choose the standard option to bring your energy home. It can be the cheapest; It is very likely that this is not the case. To find the best deal on your new home, EnergyBot helps you find the best electricity rates for Houston. On average, Americans pay about $ 110.76 a month for electricity.
You may be able to cut that in half by simply changing your electricity supplier. You can probably also reduce it by partially switching to solar energy. As with rain barrels, however, you need to spend a little in advance before seeing the ROI.
In terms of technology, your primary monthly bills will be internet and cable. The Internet costs an average of $ 60 a month, the cable an average of $ 85. More and more people are no longer paying for cables due to the convenience of the Internet. If you shop competitively, you may be able to cut this internet bill in half. However, this can result in slower Internet surfing.
Regulate your monthly Houston utilities
Each household will be different, but if you pay the average price for all of these utilities, you'll see around $ 463.69 a month. You will probably want to cut that in half, if at all. This can be achieved by choosing the cheapest electricity option, installing solar solutions, installing a rain barrel, avoiding cables and managing channel usage.
In addition to these monthly fees, you should plan for a recurring HOA fee and reasonable taxation for owning property. If you add this to your mortgage, you can expect to pay around $ 1,500 a month for your home. Once you own the property, drop to around $ 250 and lower your monthly utility bill to something more sensible.
