pros and cons of putting coined washer/dryer for tenants

[David Smith]

How does it make money?  Cost of machine, repairs,  water, gas, electricty is a lot. 

  It increases property value?   It sure helps the tenants.  But bet it wonot help a lot for the rent increase. 

[Alvin Sylvain]

Pros:

Yes, value is increased. Tenants appreciate not needing to get into their car to drive half a mile to do laundry. Then they have to sit there until it's done, to make sure nobody throws their underwear out on the floor, listening to everybody else's kids running around screaming (Our kids are very well-behaved, naturally). Very inconvenient. Having a laundry room in-house is a god-send.

So that means your tenants are less likely to churn out. Especially if you're in a market where there aren't many places with in-house laundry.

Yes, it can earn income. The coins (or credit cards these days) your tenants drop into the slots should more than compensate for their costs. Put another way, the laundry machines should pay for themselves, and then some.

Yes you can use this as an excuse to raise rents, but I'd wait a year, or the next time it's scheduled to go up for general inflation.

Cons:

Yes, it's one more expense that might draw the line for a marginal property. It's one more thing to manage. It's one more target for the neighborhood vandals (if the property is in that kind of area).

Or it's one more thing for your property manager to manage, who may then raise his rates.

It might not earn enough income. Just the costs of setting up a room, bringing the plumbing, gas, electric (I believe commercial machines run on 250 volts, which likely isn't wired in yet), having someone on-call to fix them whenever they break, might require too much capital.

But:

I'd wager I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know!

Personally, if I had a place where I could put one, I'd gladly put in a laundry room. It's bound to at least break-even, but the tenant happiness (and hence being more steady) would be more than worth it. Not every property will have a place where you can put the machines, an obstacle which might stop the project before it even starts.

If you have to sacrifice one unit for this, I'd be a lot less gung-ho on the "Pros". You'd have to put Lost Rent in the "Cons" section.