Gas price rise affects real estate

With gas prices increasing, some Oakland real estate companies are taking steps to reduce… With gas prices increasing, some Oakland real estate companies are taking steps to reduce rents and improve buildings’ heat efficiencies.

Cheryl Buchewichz of Glickman Real Estate said that even though gas prices have gone up, the company hasn’t increase its residents’ monthly rents.

In fact, Glickman Real Estate lowered the rent where tenants pay their own gas bills, Buchewichz said, taking the amount from $840 per month to $790 per month.

“We are taking the brunt of the gas price increase,” she said. “We’d rather take a little bit of loss and rent all of our apartments.”

Glickman Real Estate uses Dominion People’s Gas Company to provide home heating to its units.

Buchewichz said the cost of water and sewage in Pittsburgh has gone up, too, increasing by 10 percent since Jan. 1.

“People don’t realize how expensive it is,” she said. “Our water and sewage has been going up for years.”

According to Buchewichz, the apartments where gas is included with rent are almost completely rented out for the upcoming season.

Meyer’s Management, a real estate company that rents in Oakland, Shadyside and Squirrel Hill, doesn’t require its tenants to pay the gas bills.

Jeannie Bruno, a representative for the company, said that despite the gas price increase, rent has only gone up by $15.

“We have students and don’t like sticking it to them,” she said. “We just like to rent our apartments.”

Marilyn Fields, a property manager of 134 units for McKee Place Apartments, said that although gas is not included in the rent of the apartments, the company has taken steps to help its residents reduce the cost of heating, including installing new windows and new heating units.

Fields, who has been a property manager for six years, said the purpose of both of these improvements is to help the residents retain heat in their apartments.

“We have been putting in new windows and new heaters that are much more efficient,” she said.

Tim Prahl, the supervisor at McKee Place Apartments, said the new windows, which unlike the old ones are insulated, should decrease residents’ gas bills by 50 percent.

According to Prahl, the new furnaces, which are 80 to 90 percent efficient, could lower residents’ gas bills by 25 percent to 50 percent.

Emily Alex, who lives on the third floor of the McKee Place apartment building Prahl was standing outside of, said she thinks the new windows have definitely helped her and her roommates keep their unit warmer.

But despite the new windows and furnace, Alex keeps a space heater in her room, an extra that increases her electric bill.

And the gas bill still depends on how residents control their thermostats, Prahl said.

“A furnace is only about as cost efficient at what the thermostat is set at,” he said. “It’s provided that they don’t keep it like Jamaica in there.”