Take the University of Delaware out of Newark and most of the rental market leaves with it. Thousands of students fill the houses and small apartment buildings around Main Street, nearly all held by individual landlords, and nearly all served by one water meter for the whole building. Bundle water into those leases and the owner covers every shower, every load of laundry, and every fixture nobody bothered to report. Water submetering assigns the cost unit by unit instead. True Submeter puts an individual water meter on each one and bills every tenant automatically for exactly what they used, so the water bill comes back to the owner. Consumption drops once tenants can see what they are running, arguments over a split bill go away, and net operating income improves, with the meter itself usually paid off in a matter of months. A market that empties every May should not be leaving its water unmetered.
