9 Essential Laundromat Analysis Keys [Checklist]

In past posts, I’ve talked a little bit about why I bought a laundromat, 15 irresistible reasons to buy a laundromat, and if laundromats are good investments. Let’s get practical now. You want to know how to find, analyze, buy, and run your own laundromat. And later you will want to know how to grow and scale your laundromat business into thriving businesses. So let’s start with laundromat analysis. Actually, we’re going to start with laundromat pre-analysis.

First things first. I’ve learned from my experience that the most crucial thing that you can do is find the right deal to buy. As eager as you might be to purchase your first deal (or your second, third, or twentieth), it is well worth waiting to find the right deal.

I have never had any problem finding laundromats for sale. In fact, one time I happened to notice a small laundromat not too far from one of mine that I had never even noticed before. I wanted to check it out so I went in. It was a fairly large store but was in pretty rough shape. Broken machines galore, leaky roof, floor tiles chipped and missing, the works. It had free dry so there were a few customers in there. There was a woman there cleaning who immediately came up to me and asked me if I was looking to buy the laundromat.

I guess I stuck out like a sore thumb because her first thought was, “Maybe he’ll buy it!” I did not buy it. Rule #1 was a hard lesson for me to learn and I am determined not to repeat that past mistake. It is crucial to always follow Rule #1.

Rule #1

Rule #1 is always, only buy the right deal.

This is much easier said than done. What makes a laundromat a good candidate to be the right deal? Well, ultimately it comes down to numbers. But there are a lot of things to consider BEFORE you invest your time digging into the numbers. I have designed this pre-analysis checklist to be a quick and dirty way of getting a rough idea of the potential of the laundromat(s) you’re looking into. You don’t want to spend your valuable time and energy (and money) analyzing deals that were never going to work from the start.

This pre-analysis checklist will help you sift through potential laundromats to help you find the diamonds (or diamonds in the rough) quickly and allow you to spend your time and energy (and money) doing a more thorough investigation of those deals. Let’s start going through the pre-analysis checklist.

Pre-Analysis Checklist

1. Good location
2. Good size for your budget
3. Competitor locations and distances from your potential laundromat
4. No new laundromats being built near by
5. Condition of the machines, the furniture and fixtures, and the building, including the floors, paint, folding tables, decor, etc.
6. Variety of sizes of washing machines (Keep track of the equipment mix, age, serial numbers, etc. with the FREE Store Details Worksheet)
7. Multiple streams of income or potential to add them (Find ways to add streams of income with our FREE Value Add Checklist)
8. Vend price comparison with surrounding competitors
9. Value add propositions

Laundromat Analysis

The following series of posts will detail each of the 9 the laundromat analysis keys. They will go into more detail on what exactly to look for when you’re doing your pre-analysis. As the posts become available they will be linked to each above. If you’re looking to purchase a laundromat and want to succeed from the start it would definitely be worth going through the series.

We will follow it up with a series on how to do a more thorough laundromat analysis of the performance of a potential purchase. This will include income verification, machine condition, water and gas usage analysis, a lot of math, and more.

To help you rapidly pre-analyze deals, we will provide a pre-analysis scorecard when the series finishes. It will be available in the resources section. This scorecard will help you quickly determine whether a particular store is worth pursuing further or not.

At Laundromat Resource, we will give you everything you need to help you succeed as a laundromat owner. This includes everything you need to help you perform a thorough laundromat analysis. To be even more thorough, you can request a FREE consultation and have a second set of eyes from a veteran owner analyze your deal with you. 

The important take-away from this post is that it is crucial that you purchase the right laundromat. Use the 9 essential laundromat analysis keys to weed out laundromats that will never be contenders. It will save you time, effort, and money.