It’s always tricky to save money in a building’s budget without cutting things that residents will miss and without jeopardizing the building’s long term health. And yet, sometimes, cutting the building’s operating budget is necessary. Here are some places to look first:
1. Thin out landscaping expenses. The first thing you’ll want to do is to put off any landscaping projects aside from the regular upkeep. You might also be able to get away with spreading out service intervals further apart to cut down on costs.
2. Batch maintenance to save on money. It’s never a good idea to skip out on building maintenance, because when things break, it costs much more than it would have cost you to prevent the issue in the first place. With that being said, usually every season has some maintenance tasks that need doing, and by batching all of these together, you may be able to save money with your vendors.
3. Embrace energy efficiency. This is a tricky one, in that you sometimes have to spend some money up front on green upgrades, but can then benefit from the long term savings and conserve funds in the long run. Nonetheless, because it saves money across the board and does not actually have any downsides for building residents, this is one of our favorite ways to save money on building operations. To dip your toes in, consider converting common area and outdoor lighting to LEDs to save up to 60% on their operation.
4. Appeal your property taxes. We live in Chicago after all, which has repeatedly been called one of the worst cities for property taxes in the entire nation. When it comes to bang for your buck, it’s very much worth it to appeal your building’s assessment every year to save money on taxes.
