All Forum Posts by: Thomas Gagnon

great point @adam  

@Adam Juodis we based our rates slightly lower than local laundromats to entice the tenants to ensure the machines are not idle because of our monthly lease fee.  As for the breakdown above it's important when it comes to laundry to break my monthly costs down per tenant and not per rental unit.  I have roughly 24 tenants in that building with I'd say 18 using the machines regularly, some just like to get their laundry done in an hour or so with no use competition by going to the local laundromat.  That said it'd be 390 a month divided by 18 tenants times "# of tenants in your case" minus the utilities used.  Utilities I have seen on my end run about $20 per month for the roughly estimated 100 loads, "wash/dry" per month.

Honestly though, you can estimate and estimate but with laundry income it is highly dependent on your local utility rates, efficiency of your units, which if you are buying on your own and have older existing units, they use something 300% more utilities than what a system like mine uses.  But at the purchase price point of my leased units it'd take you years to recoup.  My rule of thumb is to use mac-gray and break even, I'll explain the contract later below.  If I make money lots of money on the larger buildings great, but more importantly it is a HUGE factor in obtaining great tenants.  Up here at least, where tenants in February would have to cart their laundry through a foot of snow to a laundromat just to wash some undies, or instead simply walk down stairs in their sweats in between commercials on a Saturday is paramount.  My rents are roughly 10% higher because of it which let's say for this building alone equates to over $1100 a month, which shadows the laundry income.   

I'd say get mac gray into your building with 1 unit each, plenty for a 4 unit and without the credit card machine it's like 25 per unit per month.  If you break even or make money, Great, if not you just provided a 10% increase ammenity which is the smart investor's move.  

Did I mention mac-gray comes every month to clean them and empty all the quarters and simply sends you a check each month, these guys are amazing.  

Potential for laundry income, guaranteed monthly rent increase, no maintenance fees, no repair fees, and you don't even collect the loot.  Zero effort with nothing but an upside, and I write into every mac gray contract that if the monthly fee on their end is not covered by the laundry income that they lower their monthly fee for that month to match, they've never said no.

Best of luck

I have a 14 unit with 2 washers and 2 dryers, about 25 tenants.  After metered expenses and I know because my laundry is metered separate I get about 390 a month or 250 net.  I have a company called mac-gray lease me the units.  They provide all repairs and provide insurance for any damage that is caused by them.  The machines can take both coin and credit cards.  I charge 2.75 a load and 1.75 to dry but the tenants can pick how many minutes up to 55 for that max charge of 1.75 on the dryers.  Credit card systems are great because tenants do more loads because they never have to stuff it to the ceiling because they are on their last roll of quarters.  Mac-gray charges $30 per unit per month so 120 and then the metered utilities after that nets me about 250 a month like I said earlier.  Units are front hold high efficiency speed queens worth about 2 grand a piece, dryers are propane.  

Leasing for 30 a unit a month with no maintenance costs ever and a free credit card system has been a no brainer for me.

And maybe I need glasses but the income - expenses does not equal the numbers the seller has outlined

do you find it strange that year to year expenses are identical down to the last dollar though the inputs swung significantly year to year on some items?

May be nothing, but may be something.......

By the way just to be clear this 2fam is not turn key, it needs 40 k to get up to my standards.  But still a 2 fam for 55-65 depending on my estimates, crossing fingers!

No auction, it'll blow your mind but they didn't even have a town program in place that could disperse tax deeded properties.  I actually stumbled onto this late in 2015 when I inquired with the town about purchasing a grassy lot across from that building because we wanted to establish more parking.  They told me though tax deeded they couldn't sell because they had never voted on the ordinances to do so, haha, small town problems.  Anyways, I worked with them to create a program, can't take much credit most was already in place.  But gave them a big push so to speak by bringing it to forum at the town meeting etc pushing for the vote etc etc.  Took about two months and they were able to dispose of about 100+ properties, land etc.  They started with a butters then moved to public offers, no auction just a newspaper posting saying provide highest bid by this date.  Kind of an auction I guess but not in the normal sense.  Most properties were empty 1-3 acre lots that sold for 500 dollars because it was the minimum bid but most were useless unless you are an abutter.  Some Multi's were sold but we didn't buy any of them at that time just the parking lot we wanted but again just recently grabbed the 2 fam that randomnly came by tax deed.  They are about to take an 8000 multi commercial/residential building in the center of town if they haven't already, not sure of the back taxes but most of the time they don't look to get back taxes paid just to get the income coming back in, but you didn't hear that from me.  They don't advertise in anything but their local free gas station paper so no one ever knows. They called me about the 8000sqrft in the center of town but right now switched gears to another project in Worcester.  Call the town admin.  If you send me a private message I'll give you her contact info.  Best of luck!!

Great point in the right direction @Kim Younkin.  I'll do that!

And thanks @Ann Bellamy for the advice, I'll look into them asap.  By the way Ann, I have been networking in MA at many events for some time but surprisingly not so much in nh especially considering most of my units are in nh.  I attend the NHREIA once a month in Manchester but do you know of others I might attend in Manchester or concord etc?

Thanks Everyone!

welcome to BP!!  I love southern NH, my best investments so far have been in this area

that's a pic of our finished building