Demographic

[Buddy_Amoroso]

I am looking at a new location that has the following demographics:

One Miles Radius

5603 Residential Units
14,538 population
$20,254 median income
52.55% Renters
34.71% Poverty Satus
89.24% Minorities

(I'm not sure why I don't have a Three Mile Radius)

Five Miles Radius

69,110 Residential Units
168,403 population
$27,068 median income
46.78% Renters
22.69% Poverty Satus
49.96% Minorities

There are two laundries about one mile away.

Do you think this area would surport a self service? What size laundry.

Buddy Amoroso

[pete f]

is this a small town? I am not sure people will drive 5 miles to go do laundry if they have stores near them. I look at 1/2 mile radius. Do the drive around, you know what to look for.

[goingtoarizona]

Sounds a bit tight...how big and busy are the other mats? Go to the US census...my zip code is 93215, Delano, Ca . We do ok. There are 3 other mats,one nice one, one smaller one,one crappy one, ours is just below the nice one.We have 44k people,and I'll bet my poverty level is as high or higher than yours.Good luck, but I probably would try a larger town. In my opinion, a certain percentage of people frequent mats.Higher or lower, depending upon location. You need a certain number of people per mat to sustain them. Most importantly, from my experience, I would just buy an existing mat, especially the first time. Since I don't like surprises, I will continue to only buy existing mats. I would recommend that for all investors, gamblers, go out and start new mats in new neighborhoods, with big fat mortgages...

[pete f]

I missed the 168,000 population for 5 mile radious. I still say 1/2 mile radius, that will be your core cust base.

[Buddy_Amoroso]

Pete I will get the 1/2-mile radius report.

Total population in Baton Rouge before hurricane Katrina was around 350,0000 now after the Katrina only God knows. On the low side the estimates are that the population increased to around 20,000 the high side estimate is 150,000.

There is no such thing as a "quick trip” in Baton Rouge now. It use to me take about 20 minutes for me to get to my store now with the increased traffic it now takes about an hour.

Of course the new population figures are not included in the 2000 census report. The question is how many of these people will stay in Baton Rouge. Nobody knows the answer to that question. That why I am using the 2000 numbers.

Buddy Amoroso

[Buddy_Amoroso]

Okay Pete,

Here's the numbers

1/2 mile radius
pop 4059
households: 1620
median household income: $19,414.00
Renters: 56.11%


1 mile radius
pop 15,118
households: 6258
median household income: $21,803.00
Renters: 53.20%

3 mile radius
pop 90076
households: 35.644
median household income: $23,991
Renters: 53.55%

Source: Claritas

[pete f]

the numbers look great. It is what everyone looks for. The question is how much the other 2 mats are doing, and how good they are. Does the area need (another) mat?

[Kitty]

Can you get the water usage for the other two laundries and assess the other two and try to calulate their revunue?

Currrently the patrons are doing laundry somewhere. If there are only two laundries in town, you will be taking the business and splicing by another third, so by an example, if the revenue is 1 million dollars for the two combined now by cutting an extra third can the 3rd store survive in this environment? Or would the revenue be more or less in your situation? You need to know how many households are combining the total market for laundromat use, or at least an approximate number to make up this total so you can determine if an additional laundry is needed.

Let say there are 1500 households in the market that utilize a laundry at 12 dollars (conservative) weekly amount spent in the location you are considering that would be almost 940,000 a year in revenue could three mats survive? Is there 1500 households? You have to determine the amount between the market according to the demographics as well as what the other two laundries are doing.