All Forum Posts by: Sam Wilson

We just wrapped up the Best Ever Conference 2020 (Many thanks to @Joe Fairless and @Benjamin Lapidus and their team!)   Wondering if there were similar investment conferences or meetups in the European market that would be worth attending?  My wife speaks French but otherwise would need to be an English-speaking conference.

@Account Closed - We bought a failing laundromat in Memphis and our biggest mistakes were:  not having a plumber evaluate before purchase and not negotiating a better and longer lease.  Best of luck!

We (my wife @Elizabeth Wilson and I) are beyond excited to be joining in with ya'll for the third time for the BEC!  (a true testimony to what a great conference @Joe Fairless, @Benjamin Lapidus and the rest of the BEC put on!).

I'll be doing some snowboarding on Sunday and Monday if anyone is staying around and wants to network on the slops, please let me know

Looking forward to sharing about passive investing in parking assets!

See y'all soon!

@Jessica Monroe - we currently outsource our dry cleaning too and it is so worth it!  I'd never want to do it in house.  Wouldn't be profitable and I'd rather focus on what we specialize in: being the best laundomat and laundry service in Memphis! :)  Let me know if you have specific questions.

@Philip Devine - congrats!  We bought a failing one in Memphis last year and after the remodel it began to cash-flow!    Our drop-off and delivery combined is about 15% of our net.  If you have space you should consider partnering with a local drycleaners as a drop-off spot for them.  We dont make a lot with it but it pays for our attendants.  

Yes. We have 3 full time employees and one part time employee. No to anything related to good business practice. We did not research anything. Just did a walk through, knew the area and said "yeah we can make this work". I assumed it was just another RE flip. It's plumbing, electrical and presentation, 10x. If you translate this into hieroglyphics it would be a pictograph of a dumbass. We are idiots. They were losing their shirt on the NOI. But like any good RE deal it was largely because their space had not been updated in 25 years and most of the machines did not work. The lighting was shot, flooring was nasty and it was a mess overall. In that regard it was a flip. We turned it around. But then we found latent plumbing problems, water heater problems, HVAC problems, electrical problems etc that just kicked us while we were down. I "think" we are through the worst of it. It's a good space. I can see the upside. And to boot it is a very fragmented industry with loads of opportunity to institutionalize. Tide is on tear to do just that. Which only confirms I am doing the right thing. We just launched our own app based delivery platform, along with online pickup and delivery and that is growing week over week. I think that's the real future of it. My goal may just to be the B between A and C in future rollouts. I don't know. We may own too. Who knows! Love to talk laundry anytime. Also a great resource is the Laundromat owners group on FB. SUPER ENGAGED.

@Jordan Berry It's going great. Rough start as we got into a business we literally had read nothing about, knew nothing about, but understood its mechanics, or so we thought. Then it all hit the fan. We had budgeted 40k in capital improvements, which turned into 100k in less than 3 months... :-) None of it could have been predicted really. We had the cash on hand to stomach the capex, but it was not fun. Even with new equipment expense and unforeseen capex, it will return north of 20%. Not what most LM's do but we won't be mad. Just need to have a good 6 month stretch so we can get our $ back out of the business. We'd like to create a laundromat empire to be honest. I have some nutty ideas on how to do it. Let's chat sometime. I see you are in  the LA area. We should have connected as we were just there yesterday. I'll be back out there in Jan for a RE conference. Would love to meet up and chat. Also, you should see what Ross Dodds is doing with Wash on Western in LA. He's rockin' it.

@Mindy Jensen - Hi.  Just wondering if the headshots from the conference have been emailed out yet.  I never received mine so I didn't know if they might be stored somewhere else.  BTW that was a great idea for attendees.

My wife (@Elizabeth Wilson) and I bought and remodeled a laundromat in Memphis last September.  I was just wondering if there were other laundromat investors also on BP to connect with and share ideas on how to grow and improve.  If so, we'd love to connect!

Ha! I was you in 2008. Dang near to a dollar. You do not get your 2.3%. That's a waste of time, your most precious of all capital. You probably do buy out of state with a reputable hands on company like @Chris Clothier. Get your 10-15% on your $. Find a lender who will finance 80% of the PP and you pitch in the 20%. With 60K you can do it 3x. You can spend 100k in Memphis and get a 10-15% return all day with the correct leverage. Maybe less with a management company but whatever. 2.3% is worthless. Just a thought. Use that cash to buy wisely and buy for cash-flow.