Would like to hear everybody’s thoughts on adding a coin-op laundry and a soda machine for tenants as a way to increase revenue. As a background, our park is small (42 spaces) so I’m expecting comments about economy of scale based on that. We have an old barn with existing electrical and plumbing services that I could convert into laundry with a little work.
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Adding a coin-op laundry at our park. My appliance guy I use for my other rental properties says he can supply apartment grade coin-op units around $600 each for a washer and dryer. Any rules of thumb for the amount of revenue per space? Another note, many of my tenants currently have either washer/dryer hookups or actual washer/dryers in their trailers.
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Adding a park-owned soda machine. I see my tenants buying energy drinks at the corner store for $2 - $4 per can. There has to be a huge mark-up and I could fill it with a mix of those and regular soda. We have a machine in the park now that is owned by a third party. I get a few complaints that its always out of product but the company that owns it tells me they adequately fill it and its rarely out of product. My issue is that I only get about $30 every year from the owner of the machine. Most likely it uses more electricity than that per year. When I talk with the company they dissuades me from getting my own machine because of the cost of maintenance and repairs. Is this really a problem in your experience? I have a “manager” onsite that could fill the machine as often as needed and we could work out a fair deal for doing such.
I’d love to hear people’s thoughts as I am always looking for ways to increase revenue based on the “built-in” demand from my tenants. Half jokingly I say if they’d just legalize marijuana in my area I’d have it made by opening a dispensary from our office. Talk about a captive market!