Is Buying A Laundromat A Good Investment

For example, there may be a local laundromat or a chain looking to franchise in your area. This organization will have more resources, including money, staffing, and possibly even a customer base that they can bring in.

is buying a laundromat a good investment

Keep in mind that not all agents specialize in acquisitions. Some specialize in renting, while others close deals. That said, if you already plan to lease out the laundromat to another business, you may want to have a separate real estate agent on standby to help you lease it once you officially become the owner.

Class A buildings are typically newer and located in the best part of town. Most new laundromats are class A. As you might expect, you can expect to pay more for a class A property. However, the property should require fewer repairs and should attract more customers due to the prime location, which may offset the higher upfront price tag.

For example, if you get a good deal on a class B laundromat, you may be able to make capital upgrades and bump up its status to class A. If you decide to take this route, having a firm understanding of your repair costs is critical to success.

Another option to consider is speaking with your local officials or zoning board. These people typically have a good understanding of the local community and can give you an opinion about whether or not a laundromat is a viable business plan. You can also learn about your likelihood of gaining approval for the business and if there are any zoning or legal obstacles that might arise.

Walk into any laundromat and notice how many machines are out of order at a given time. Your machines are inevitably going to break, requiring expensive repairs. You may wind up spending thousands of dollars annually on maintenance and repairs just to keep your machines up and running.

If you decide to take a hands-on approach and manage everything yourself, owning a laundromat can be more than a full-time job. It can eat up all of your free time and become an exhausting endeavor. However, if you hire others to work for you and outsource operations wherever you can, you can buy back some time and make it a more of a passive income source. Though, of course, every hire you make eats into your profits.

Some laundromats offer dry cleaning and fold services, while others are purely self-service. Laundromat owners often provide these services because they can charge more money. However, they also require factoring in extra costs.

Another significant factor that plays into starting a small business, especially when it comes to opening a laundromat, is the ability to generate family wealth and create an asset that the owner can pass down to the next generation.

If owning a business is your dream, you have probably given some thought to different types of businesses that you can invest in. What you may not have considered, though, is the opportunity presented by owning and operating a laundromat.

Laundromats also have a surprisingly high return on investment, averaging 20-35% in the first year. Moreover, once the location and commercial laundry equipment are set, laundromats are relatively easy to get up and running without the extended lead time required by retail, restaurant, or other service businesses before turning a profit.

Laundromats tend to be profitable even in an economic downturn. During a recession, more people will turn to self-service laundry rather than outsourced laundry or dry cleaning. At the same time, people may not be willing to invest in purchasing or repairing home laundry machines when money is tight, relying instead on local laundromats.

With washers and dryers that can accept cash, cards and mobile payment through a laundry payment app, laundromats have a quick payment cycle; significantly shorter than the 30-60 day cycle found within many other industries.

In the same Gallup poll, 47% of potential entrepreneurs hesitated to take the next step because they were worried that running their own business would negatively affect their work-life balance. A laundromat, though, requires minimal in-person supervision, particularly if the owner invests in remote monitoring tools.

For the 84% of potential entrepreneurs that prefer the security of a steady paycheck, the right tools make it possible to supervise a laundromat on a part-time basis, while maintaining a regular full-time job.

The possibility of attaining financial security, a manageable work-life balance, and contributing to the economy of your community and the country at large are all compelling reasons for investing in laundromats. The high rate of success, excellent ROI, flexibility, scalability, and easy-to-manage cash flow make laundromats a smart choice for new and experienced small business investors.

If you're considering opening a coin laundry business, congratulations! Laundromats can be highly profitable, recession-resistant, and flexible businesses, making them highly attractive for entrepreneurs. However, as with any business investment, there are risks to owning a laundromat which potential investors should carefully consider before diving in.

As a leading laundry equipment distributor since 1980, Martin Ray has helped our fair share of laundromat investors get started. We've witnessed the successes as well as the struggles that laundromat owners have endured, and we want to pass the lessons we've learned on to new entrepreneurs. Before investing in a laundromat, here are the pros and cons you should consider before getting started.

If you think investing in a laundromat might be right for you, let the Martin Ray Laundry Systems consultants help. We provide laundry equipment sales & service, and laundromat consulting to Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, west Texas, and western Nebraska. Get in touch with us today:

For example, the average return on investment of a laundromat business is 20% to 35%, a much higher return than the S&P 500 has historically provided. A laundromat is also relatively simple to set up and flexible to maintain. Here are 15 reasons to consider this potentially lucrative side business as your next venture.

Laundromats might be able to succeed despite an economic downturn because people will always need clean clothes. In fact, in difficult economic times, a laundromat might actually get more business as people ditch their laundry pickup services for a more affordable option.

When you own a laundromat, you can deduct certain business expenses from your taxable income. These include things like routine maintenance and the cost of goods sold by your business. New regulations from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act also allow you to buy new equipment and deduct 100% of the cost in the first year you place the washers and dryers into service. The new rules save laundromat owners a significant amount of cash.

This means, if you pay in cash you can get an immediate 20-30% return on your investment. Laundromats are cash flow businesses, too. You can pick up where the previous owner left off and start collecting quarters the next day.

Laundromats are valued at around 3.5 to 4.5 times their net operating income. The net operating income of a laundromat is calculated by deducting all the operating expenses from the income a laundromat is making.

Some businesses offer some other services that require labor, like folding clothes. But for the most part, the service a laundromat provides is the machines people use to wash and dry their clothes themselves.

Jordan has a billboard on the side of one of his buildings and some advertising inside that generates income. With lots of foot traffic coming through your laundromat, you could add advertising in a number of places.

On the laundromat resources front, Jordan is always looking to provide more opportunities for people within the business to share their knowledge. He has a podcast, in which he does long-form interviews with laundromat owners and other people in the industry.

I also visit a lot. We have spent hours in laundromats, doing our own laundry while we covertly check it out. Talk to the customers too. They provide a wealth of information about the area and how the laundry is managed.

One random night last November I decided to log on to a business buy-sell website to see what was for sale in our region. Amazingly, the laundromat less than a mile from our home was for sale. The asking price was too high though. Thankfully, the seller was motivated, and we ended up negotiating it down from $129,500 to $105k. Now that was a number we could get excited about.

One great thing is that when you buy a laundromat, since a large part of the purchase price is based on the acquisition of a lot of fixed assets (washers, dryers, sinks, boiler system, etc), this means that a large portion of what you paid for the business is tax-deductible.

Great post, I was under contract to buy a laundromat about 3 years ago. It fell through due to equipment condition, but I still wonder what would have come from this. I have been keeping an eye out for another deal. Was the purchase for the business only or did it include the Real Estate as well? I always want the real estate as part of my deals, but this definitely eats into the cash flow.

Hi Laura. Im interested in buying a laundromat. However I jyst dont know where to start. Right now its an idea for me but i want to make it real. How do i get started? Im starting at 0. How tanmenmuch money do i need to be taken seriously and will a low credit score stop me from being able to purchace a laundromat?

I am looking into buying a laundromat. There is a mat for sale, which is around 45 minutes to an hour away from where I live/work (my office is very close to home). There are attendants taking care of all the house keeping work, selling lottery, etc.

If the laundromat is fully attended (which it sounds like it may be), with hard-working trustworthy attendants, then you can be a semi-absentee owner as you describe. There still may be an emergency that comes up once in a great while (water heater goes out, etc), which will require immediate attention, but again, that is rare. 041b061a72