In this presentation at InvestHerCon2023, Tiffany Mittal, co‑owner of multifamily apartments and founder of Utility Ranger, shares her journey from battling soaring water bills to creating a software platform that empowers small‑to‑medium landlords to capture utility revenue. She recounts a vivid anecdote of a tenant leaving a shower running, which highlighted the wasteful cost of including water in rent. After being rejected by large utility‑billing firms that only serve portfolios of 1,000+ units, she and her husband secured a job at one of those firms, learned the industry inside‑out, and grew that business from $100K to $20 M in five years. Applying Ratio Utility Billing System (RUBS) to a 36‑unit property generated $36,000 in extra annual revenue, which increased the property’s Freddie Mac appraisal by $1 M and enabled a $500K cash‑out refinance that funded additional acquisitions. Recognizing that small investors need a DIY tool, she launched Utility Ranger, a SaaS platform that automates utility billing, recently backed by Grant Cardone. She offers a quick calculation—units × $1,000 ÷ cap rate—to estimate hidden revenue and illustrates how leveraging that cash can grow a portfolio’s value by millions. The talk blends personal storytelling, concrete financial results, and a call to action for landlords to adopt utility billing technology.
Chapters
You're drinking wine. I would be too.
But just, I need your attention just for a little bit. What's really neat about what she's doing is she's so passionate because she was in all of our shoes, and she's in our shoes. She's a multifamily investor, and she had really frustrations about the billing system and stuff. She thinks all these billing platforms are made for the big guys, and she wanted to create something for those small to medium-sized owners. So I want to introduce you to Tiffany to share a little bit about what she's up to. She's on a mission just like all of our amazing companies here. She's going to share a little more about So please welcome Tiffany to the Blue Hen Forum.
Hoping I don't fall off of this. I'll catch you. My husband and I are apartment owners just like you, and what I noticed one day when I was sitting in my kitchen opening up my bills Was that my water bills for my properties were getting so high they were eating into my profits. What I noticed though is my tenants weren't conserving water no matter how much I pleaded to them. But I get it. I mean, this morning my shirt was a little wrinkly, so I put it in the shower in my hotel room, turned on the hot water, and let it go. Which many of you have heard the exact same thing. But our tenants think the exact same way. If you include water in their rent, they just use it and they say, it's included in the rent. But until it really hits you, I had a tenant of mine call me up and say, one of my neighbors, I hear water running all day. I don't even think she's home. So I Talked to my on-site manager. We went into the unit, and what did we find? Is her shower was on, and she wasn't even home. She went to work. So when she got home, we asked her, "What are you doing? What your shower was on? You weren't even home." And she said, "My dog has anxiety, and when I go to work, she barks. But if I turn the shower on," She doesn't work! And I said, are you kidding me? I'm footing the bill for this! We knew we had to do something. I had heard of this thing called RUBS, or Ratio Utility Billing System. So my husband Mark and I, who's right here, we went to all the utility billing companies and said, hey, we're ready, sign us up, we're ready to go, let's transfer our water to our residents. Maybe only then they will understand how much water costs. And they said, oh, we would love to, and yes, we do this all the time. We send bills to your tenants, no big deal. Except, you know, you only have 100 units. You're just not that big. We only service people who have 1,000 units or more in their portfolio. And we were like, are you kidding me? Like, I'm trying to give you my business and you're turning me away? And they said, I'm sorry, we just, we don't service the small. Whether it's 5 units or 5,000 units, it takes us the same amount of manual labor to do it, so we just, we can't afford to service the small guy. I was so frustrated. I said, this isn't fair! Why can't I have the same access to technology that the big guys have been using for years? Why can't I grow my properties the same way that they have? I felt very, very frustrated. I'm Tiffany Mittal, and I believe that the fastest way to grow the value of your multifamily portfolio is through utility billing. Now, those utility billing companies that wouldn't service us or take us on as clients, I decided to backdoor the system. No one tells me no. So I got a job there and learned everything there is to know. Not only did I learn everything there is to know about utility billing, I grew that company from $100,000 to $20 million in 5 years. And I knew then what it could do for me, but I didn't know until they took us on as clients by default. So our first property we did this on, it was a 36-unit property. That first year I got $36,000 of additional revenue. That's not the secret. The secret behind this is not about billing your tenants for water. Yes, that's what you're doing. The secret is in utility billing. It's not about the billing. What happened when I went to go refinance my property Freddie Mac valued my property at $1 million more just for my $36,000 of additional revenue.
Woo!
Woo! You know what they did? They gave us a cash-out refinance of $500,000. And you know what I did with that money? I bought another property. And then we said, whoa, what does this look like across our portfolio? We got $2.5 million worth of property value increase by implementing this across our properties. That we were able to leverage that capital and buy more properties to grow. So utility billing is not just about billing your tenants for water. It's not about giving them a water bill. Yes, they conserve once they start getting a bill. It's about creating a mechanism to grow your portfolio and grow your wealth. That's what they don't tell you. It's not fair. We need the same access to the technology that the big guys are growing with. And so I said, you know what? These small investors, they don't need these service companies. They just need a tool to do it themselves. Guess what? I'm gonna make one. So that's what I did. I created Utility Ranger, which is a software platform that helps landlords take control of their utility billing, do it themselves so they can leverage the value of their own properties. A year ago, Grant Cardone bought half our company. And we launched 2 months ago. This is our first conference, Super 7. Now I want to give everybody a quick tool to understand how much money you could be leaving on the table. Who here is in multi-unit or apartments? Who owns apartments? Quick formula. Take the number of apartments that you have, times that by $1,000. So for me, that's just one property, 36 times $1,000, $36,000. Divide that by your cap rate. Mine was 4% cap because our properties are in California. That was $900,000. Simple formula. How much money are you leaving on the table? $600,000. Tell your neighbor how much money you're leaving on the table. How much money you leaving on the table? The most common question that I get is, Tiffany, can you help me build my microgrid smart utilities? And I say, of course I can. The first thing you do is you go and scan my QR code. I'm there. I'll be here all week. What that does is going to take you more website time, let you get started building more residents for utilities today. What this means is you can start leveraging the value of your properties as soon as you can. We have rugs. Picture a day. That's my part. Picture a day when you open up your water bill and smile because you know your tenants are going to pay you back. Picture a day when your accountant comes to you and says, what did you do different? Profits are up. Picture a day when you get to use those profits to take you to the next level. You deserve to have access to the same technology the big guys have been using for years. You deserve to have more money coming in than going out.
Yes, yes.
You deserve to feel open and confident. Thank you. I'm just so proud.
