Laundromat with leased machines

[Chris Puglisi]

Hello!

I have been looking to purchase a laundromat for almost a year now. I just had one come up that is about 20 minutes from me for $26k. Pretty small with only about 25 machines split between washers and dryers. The reported income is showing about a break even. Give or take a few hundred dollars month to month. The lease is $2,000 plus utilities which are about $650 a month. This in in Connecticut. I am trying not to be picky but starting to really get desperate in finding something but also don’t want to buy something bad. There is a 5 year lease with 2 five year options. The kicker here is that I will not own the machines and they are actually part of the $2,000/month rent, but I am responsible for repair. Also, in a dense residential neighborhood so only street parking.

Honestly as I write this I am taking myself out of it. I guess positives are that is is located where a lot of university (Yale) student and staff live and the neighborhood is pretty nice. It is also fairly clean and machines seems to be in decent shape. I think it would be a great store to put auto locks on and run semi absentee. There is someone running WDF that pays $500 month plus they pay to use the machines.

Personally, I think this should probably fall into one of the “Free” laundromats but I do think it has potential. I guess the big thing that is holding me up is the lease of the machines. Any thoughts? I am going to try and see if the current owner as talked to the landlord or if I am able to and see if I would be able to put new machines in if I wanted to. Sorry for the long post. Any information/advise will help. I don’t want to let my urgency to buy my first cloud my judgement.

[WILLIAM ROGERSON]

Hey Chris, this is definitely a different setup than I’ve seen previously but I don’t think it is inherently a bad one. A couple questions I would ask…

1) What would you estimate the rent to be without the machines? Do you think you are getting charged $500 a month for the machines? $1000?

2) What is the condition of the machines? Could you estimate their current value? If they are brand new and you can have them for 15 years, the numbers could quite possibly work.

3) What is the replacement agreement for “unfixable” machines from the current owner?

Interesting post – looking forward to hearing more!

[George]

Hi Chris, did you end up getting this deal?

[Juan Vazquez]

^^^ Good question and interesting post indeed. Curious of what the outcome of this was. The OP did not state what band machines or any other information. Not a common approach to say the least.

[Colton Ashby]

Hello Everyone!

I guess this is a good thread to ask this question…

I have a list of machines in a Laundromat that I am looking to purchase. I have makes, models, and serial numbers, but I don’t know where to find the value of these machines.

Any help would be awesome!

Thank you

[Author]

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