Anonymous
10-27-2007, 03:58 PM
I'm considering building a new 'mat within the growing commercial area around an 18 month-old Walmart Supercenter. There's no rental space available, but nearby commercial land is. I have a 12 page Claritas demographic report given to me by my local Ipso distributor. It's entitled "Pop-Facts: Demographic Snapshot Report", with 1,3, and 5 mile radius circles.
My wife and I are newly-minted empty-nesters, and are looking for something to work at together, now that we are finished raising our kids (we think we did a great job). We have no experience whatsoever in the Laundromat business, but I have some business experience (auto sales), and a lifetime of equipment maintenance experience, including domestic laundry equipment, plumbing, electrical, electronics, and computerized automated postal equipment. I'm still employed as an electronics technician with the Postal Service, and plan to retire from that in about 5 years.
She has years of experience as a laundromat customer, and has lots of insight on what makes a good vs. a lousy laundromat. She also is very good at managing people, and has many connections with people of Mexican heritage who we would employ, and who we feel would make excellent and dependable hired help.
We would be interested in developing a high quality Wash & Fold service as much as possible. I think that busy, working families who want to spend time with children would really go for that. The street I'm looking at property on is very easy access from all directions.
I'm in a satellite community of nearly 80,000 immediately outside of a larger city of several hundred thousand. This small city I'm in has only 1 laundromat, on one side of town, and we and our Walmart are on the other side of town, with NO laundromat. The traffic counts on the 2 major arteries that crisscross at Walmart were over 20,000 vehicles each per day, BEFORE Walmart opened. Since then, I estimate the traffic has nearly DOUBLED.
Here's the issue: there are VERY FEW APARTMENTS. Owner occupied housing is 83.9%, renter occupied is 16.1%, the majority of which are single familiy rental houses. Multi-unit apartments represent 8.45%, mobile homes in outlying area, 2.7% of total housing units.
Other miscellaneous: household income below $50,000 is 34.5%, $50-100,000 is 46.8%. There are lots of young families with children. 71.3% white, 36.3% hispanic (hispanic IS "white", but the statistic gets muddled), 3.6% American Indian, 3% black. Average age is 35, age 25-34 is 15.2%, 35-44 is 15.18%, age 1-24 is 36.9%.
The laundromat on the other side of town is about 3600 sf, and does a fairly brisk business, it's not particularly well kept. It's the furthest one out of the 7 or 8 'mats with the same owner. The rest of his are in the large adjoining city.
I will have to put everything I own on the line, and strain to qualify for the approximately $800,000 I'll need to buy the lot, develop, build, and equip. The distributor enthusiastically claims the area badly needs another laundromat, but HE wants to sell equipment, and therefore is biased.
Any constructive input here by you veterans of the trade will be GREATLY APPRECIATED. Does it look like a probability of success???
My wife and I are newly-minted empty-nesters, and are looking for something to work at together, now that we are finished raising our kids (we think we did a great job). We have no experience whatsoever in the Laundromat business, but I have some business experience (auto sales), and a lifetime of equipment maintenance experience, including domestic laundry equipment, plumbing, electrical, electronics, and computerized automated postal equipment. I'm still employed as an electronics technician with the Postal Service, and plan to retire from that in about 5 years.
She has years of experience as a laundromat customer, and has lots of insight on what makes a good vs. a lousy laundromat. She also is very good at managing people, and has many connections with people of Mexican heritage who we would employ, and who we feel would make excellent and dependable hired help.
We would be interested in developing a high quality Wash & Fold service as much as possible. I think that busy, working families who want to spend time with children would really go for that. The street I'm looking at property on is very easy access from all directions.
I'm in a satellite community of nearly 80,000 immediately outside of a larger city of several hundred thousand. This small city I'm in has only 1 laundromat, on one side of town, and we and our Walmart are on the other side of town, with NO laundromat. The traffic counts on the 2 major arteries that crisscross at Walmart were over 20,000 vehicles each per day, BEFORE Walmart opened. Since then, I estimate the traffic has nearly DOUBLED.
Here's the issue: there are VERY FEW APARTMENTS. Owner occupied housing is 83.9%, renter occupied is 16.1%, the majority of which are single familiy rental houses. Multi-unit apartments represent 8.45%, mobile homes in outlying area, 2.7% of total housing units.
Other miscellaneous: household income below $50,000 is 34.5%, $50-100,000 is 46.8%. There are lots of young families with children. 71.3% white, 36.3% hispanic (hispanic IS "white", but the statistic gets muddled), 3.6% American Indian, 3% black. Average age is 35, age 25-34 is 15.2%, 35-44 is 15.18%, age 1-24 is 36.9%.
The laundromat on the other side of town is about 3600 sf, and does a fairly brisk business, it's not particularly well kept. It's the furthest one out of the 7 or 8 'mats with the same owner. The rest of his are in the large adjoining city.
I will have to put everything I own on the line, and strain to qualify for the approximately $800,000 I'll need to buy the lot, develop, build, and equip. The distributor enthusiastically claims the area badly needs another laundromat, but HE wants to sell equipment, and therefore is biased.
Any constructive input here by you veterans of the trade will be GREATLY APPRECIATED. Does it look like a probability of success???