The Insane Cost Of Utilities In Anchorage, Wasilla, Palmer, Fairbanks! | Cost of Living in Alaska

My name is Jamin. I'm your first friend in Alaska. I'm also an associate real estate broker in South Central Alaska. Today, we're talking about cost of living, looking specifically at the cost of utilities in different places in Alaska, looking specifically at, I'm going to make sure I get this right here. So Anchorage, Wasilla, Palmer, Fairbanks, and I think we actually look at the Kenai Peninsula as well. So we'll be jumping into all that today. Before we get started, you know what to do. Give this video two big thumbs up. It really does help the channel out quite a bit And let's jump into it. OK, before we jump into this, though, I just want to make sure you're aware that in a survey, there was about 265 different cities across the U.S. there were were kind of ranked based on how expensive their utilities were. Thank you. Cities in Alaska consistently ranked higher than what you were going to see for the average and the lower 48. That being said, though, once you break it down a little bit, you see there's a lot of difference between These rankings, even within the state, for instance, the cost of the average cost of utilities and somewhere like Anchorage was about 12% above the average for the cost of utilities. You go to somewhere like Juneau, the average was above 40%. And if you go to somewhere like Fairbanks, the cost of utilities is 120% higher than the average. of utilities in the lower 48 so just to show that there's a huge difference for the cost of utilities in these different areas and you can kind of see it reflected in the cost of houses because you know a property that's going to be that expensive on the utilities and somewhere like Fairbanks you're not going to be able to even afford a higher price point than where it's at right now that's why when a property becomes connected to the natural gas in the area you're going to see the value of that property go up because the cost of utilities went way down because you're no longer reliant on oil but we'll talk more about that in just a bit and i'll show you an example Okay, so the data we're going to be going through today is not just statistical blah, blah, blah, blah blah from studies, yada, yada, yada. These are going to be very specific people who have sent me in like their utility data. Okay, so this is actually like real life on the ground Yeah. information that I've collected in the real world from the different areas that we're going to be talking about. So first off, looking at Anchorage. I did find some folks that live in a property that's about 1,700 square feet, five bedrooms, and the sewer and water is going to be about $1,400. And that is the annual cost. And that obviously is the same every year, is the same every month because they're connected to the city water and sewer. Okay, easy enough. Next is going to be gas. And this really does go all over the place, okay? It can be at the lowest of about $200, or I'm sorry, $20 during the summer where like nobody's hardly using any gas and you're actually trying to keep the place cool, all the way up to about $265 per month, okay? And I'm assuming, you know, it's a pretty safe bet that's going to be during the winter time. And usually, though, it's going to be hovering right around that $150 range. Lastly, if we look at the cost of electricity, this really can run anywhere from about $180 per month to about $240 per month. And keep in mind, this is with a fairly sizable family. And so, you know, they're going to be using these systems a little bit more than what a lot of other folks would. All right, next is going to be the utility cost for a fourplex in somewhere like Eagle River, which, you know, is actually, you know, suburb of Anchorage, different issue. But what we see here is for a fourplex that is about 6,000 square feet. So this is a pretty sizable fourplex. Looking at the utilities for that. We see that the gas is about $160 to about $670 at the highest. Now, obviously, $670 does not happen every month. Usually, the average is going to be around $200 to about $300, and this is where the tenants get to control their own thermostat, so, you know, they don't care. They're just... cranking it up all the time. They don't think they pay for that anyway. But moving on here, we see that the sewer is usually about $202 per month. The water for this one is actually on a well, so that's not really applicable. And luckily, the electricity on this one, It's not very much because electricity at least is in the tenant's name and so that's not going to be a direct cost. Usually though you know you see the electricity be around 70 to about 90 dollars per unit so if you're a landlord that's just kind of something to factor in. Number next is going to be looking at a property that's over in Wasilla. Now, this is not too far away from Anchorage, but it still has a lot of the same conveniences of being on gas. And you can connect to the sewer and all that if you're in the area. But for the most part, most properties in Wasilla, I've discovered, have their own well and septic system. And that really does cut down on the cost of utilities on a month-to-month basis. Also, though, we see that if we're looking at a ranch-style home, it's about three-bedroom, 1,400 square feet, the electricity costs. It's about 190 to about 270 a month. Now for this one specifically, I'm not going to get too much into it. I know these folks do use a lot of electricity just with what they do. And so kind of factor that in with a big grain of salt. But also looking at the cost of gas, this is really anywhere from about 50 to about 250 a month, we'll say. And obviously on the colder end of the month, it's going to be more expensive. like out in Wasilla so you know that kind of makes sense and again it's on a well and septic so these aren't really going to be monthly expenses. Obviously the septic system does have to get pumped every couple years or so depending on the usage and that runs right around like 400 to 500 bucks so not a bad trade-off actually. all right let's go and take a quick break here real quick just so you folks are aware i do host a podcast called the Alaskan Journey where i interview folks who have recently moved to Alaska we're trying something we're trying to incorporate a different concept as well where we give you the opportunity to come on and essentially host the host the episode where you get to ask me a lot of questions that you have about Alaska what it's like living up here and all that good stuff because the value we see in that is that you get the ability to ask the questions that we're sure a lot of other people are thinking as well that we just you know might not be thinking about so do make sure that if that's something you're interested in go to my website down below register and put podcast so you know we know what we're talking about and we'll touch base with you and see if we can get something like that set up also if you're looking for a relocation guide just give you some information about moving up here do make sure when you're registering to the website you put relocation guide so we can send that to you Okay, let's go ahead and finish up today's video. All right, switching gears, let's go and take a look at our friends down on the Kenai Peninsula. Now, looking at Kenai, I was actually lucky, was able to get two examples here for you. So that should give you even better sampling for the area. And we see that the cost for a 2,400 square foot house, which it does include a shop, the electricity is about $150 to about $200 during the winter. And 100 or less during the summer. So, yeah, that really does drop off. That makes sense. Cost of gas is about 100 to about 150 during the summer. And then during the winter, it's about 200 to 275 during the wintertime. Which, again, you know, that makes sense. And also the water and sewer is going to be on, you know, well and septic. So that makes perfect sense. But let me show you this real quick. and that is talking about the difference of how big of a difference the oil makes versus gas so the property we just mentioned where we're talking about 200 about 275 during the winter time for the gas for that same property they switched it over from oil like just a couple years ago and Prior to that, it was going from about 400, about 600 each month to about 200 to 275. So you see there's a drastic difference in how much it costs to heat your house with oil versus heating it with gas. And that's really best example I can come up with just to show you that disparity. Also, with oil, you have to worry about the transportation and making sure that your property is, the driveway is really prepared for that delivery. And you can get this a little bit cheaper if you can get on some kind of a monthly delivery plan and that's all fine and good. But if there's a big storm that goes through and they're not able to get out to you, then That's obviously some... Some insecurity, I guess, in your life that you have to kind of factor for. Another thing that can really kind of help with energy costs here is just to get a five-star energy rating. And according to the numbers I found, the people I was talking to, you can reduce the energy costs for the property by about 50% with that five-star energy rating. Now, yeah, so that's just what they said. And let's keep it moving and look at that other property on the All right. The other property on the Kenai that we're going to look at is about 1,500 square feet with about 574 square feet worth of garage. And the electricity usually is going to be from about 80 to about 120 for the month. And gas is going to be about 60 to about 200 per month, just depending what season it is that we're talking about. As a side note, if you're looking for the most expensive way to kind of heat your property on the Kenai, probably heating it with a With propane and then using in-floor heating and on-demand water heater and all that, that's probably the most expensive route you can go to heat your property. When you do it that way, it's probably going to be $800 or more every month just for the heating. So, you know, if you're looking to burn money, like, there you go. I can't think of a better way to do it. Last but not least, let's talk about Fairbanks. So first off, the properties that we're going to be looking at here, the sample, is going to be in the city limits itself. Okay, so if you're going way the heck out there, I... I don't know. You're going to have to do your own research. This is for utility costs for houses that are inside the city limits. And what we're seeing here for a house that is about 2,000 square feet. Well, first off, you got to factor in like a lot of these places are probably going to be on oil. And when you're doing that, like you have to factor in about a dollar per square or about a dollar per square foot per year for how much it's going to cost to actually heat that property. And thank you. that's just kind of a rule of thumb that a friend of mine who lives there kind of gave me and that's just kind of something you need to factor in the fuel cost if you're on autofill is about 3.82 cents if you're an auto refill and about four dollars per gallon for um you know if you're just kind of doing a one-off like really quick fill up that's off cycle so it can get expensive pretty quickly as you can see If you're looking at gas, probably about $400 a month on average. Obviously, it's probably going to be a lot higher during the winter months, a lot lower during the summer months, but we'll assume, according to our sample here, about $400 a month if you're just going off the average. Now another heating source in Fairbanks, this is more prevalent than you're going to find in most other parts of Alaska, is using a wood stove. So wood stove, you know, I've got one like in my property and it's awesome and all that. And a cord of wood really runs you anywhere from about $275 to about $400 for a cord of wood. And a cord, it's, it's a sizable wood pile. It's kind of hard It's kind of hard to put that really in perspective. You get different quality. of cords of wood in there just kind of depending on what wood it is and everything but a cord of wood should get you probably about three quarters of the way through this through the winter months. Okay, now looking at the water, you know, we're seeing usually if you're on well, I mean, you know, cool. You don't really have to pay extra for that. You just have to worry about maintenance and everything that goes along with it. It's going to be about $60 a month with a city hookup. If you have to have the water hauled, it's about 11 cents per gallon, plus about a $99 charge for the For the delivery average home has about a 1200 to 1500 gallon water. you know tank there if you do need a haul water so you know do your own calculations and how expensive that's going to be for you last but not least electricity for this this this house that's about 2 000 square feet is going to be anywhere from about 140 to about 200 per month on the On the average, so. Yeah, utilities can be a little expensive up in Fairbanks, just depending on what you're doing and what the weather is doing. Because, you know, that really is where a lot of the extremes of the state, you know, really, really is. But, you know, this is really designed just to kind of give you a sample of all these different areas and how much you might pay on the utilities. What would be most useful is if we had an identical property. Like we could just pick it up and like move it in these different areas for kind of the high watermarks here and each time of the year, just to kind of give you the idea there. But this is the second best that I can do with the data and information that's available. And I hope it really does help you just to kind of get an idea for where the more expensive places to live are according to the utilities. But, you know, let me know what you think and feel free to drop a comment down below. Thanks for hanging out. We'll see you next time.