| Name | Type | Address | City | Rating | Reviews | Phone | For Sale |
|---|
Laundromat Acquisition — Command Center
Everything that matters, up top. The goal, the honest path, the numbers, the top targets, and what to do next. Deeper detail is in the other tabs.
$30k/mo net in pocket ($360k/yr), minimal work, ideally one location ("less is more"). Possible $1–1.5M inheritance as fuel.
Two routes: A. one trophy store (~$1.8M+ of value), lead with this. B. 3–4 smaller mats rolled up over a few years (fallback). Full logic in Path to $30k.
- Get pre-qualified for SBA financing (call Live Oak Bank: 1-866-438-9393). You're not financing-ready yet, this comes first.
- Watch the free operations videos (Menz + Berry). See the Learn & Playbook tabs.
- Verify the top candidate (Oceanside) cash flow under NDA. Use the Call Script.
- Pick an LLC and line up a commercial-lease attorney + laundromat insurance broker.
- Wash-and-fold + delivery is the real money, not self-serve. It's where $30k/mo comes from.
- Semi-passive is earned, ~year one hands-on installing systems, then step back.
- The lease is the one thing you can't escape. Attorney redline before closing.
- Negotiate the "float" (prepaid card balances you inherit as a liability).
- Own-operator framing wins sellers. "My wife and I want to run it," not "investor."
For-Sale Listings (27 tracked, sorted by distance from 92672)
The main list. Curated from BizQuest, BizBuySell, LoopNet, BizBen, LaundromatForSale.com, BusinessesForSale.com, Craigslist, FB Marketplace + Groups, and the 24-agent workflow sweep. For the full inventory of every operating laundromat, click All Laundromats.
Facebook Groups to join (login required)
- Laundromats For Sale US — purpose-built for this exact use case
- The Laundromat / WashBizHub — most active general community
- Laundromat Owners — peer network, occasional sale posts
- Laundromat Owners Forum — Ideas For Success
- FB Marketplace San Diego — laundromat search
- FB Marketplace LA/OC — laundromat search
Opportunity Finder — off-market drive-by candidates
Pure laundromats in your commute corridor (South OC + Oceanside) with weak signals: low review count, low rating, or both. These are tired or underbranded mats — owners may be more open to an unsolicited offer. Drive past at peak hours (Sun 11am-3pm, weekday evening 6-9pm) to read the actual condition.
Greenfield Site Analysis — where to open a new spot
Population-per-laundromat ratio across South OC + Oceanside. Higher ratio = potentially underserved market. Caveat: raw pop/mat doesn't account for renter %, household size, or income — affluent owner-occupied cities (Laguna Beach, Newport) skew "underserved" but have low laundromat demand. Mark those mentally as low-signal. Real-renter-density layer is a future improvement.
Business Plan & SBA Financing — built by 24-agent workflow, SBA numbers adversarially verified
Full SBA-lender-ready business plan + financing package. Financials are an illustrative base case until a seller's real returns arrive. Full docs: BUSINESS_PLAN.md · SBA_FINANCING_PACKAGE.md · PATH_TO_30K.md
10-yr fully amortized, no prepay penalty
WSJ Prime 6.75% + ~2.5% = 9.25% note rate
DSCR target ≥1.25x global
Guaranty fee ~3% of guaranteed portion
2. Pull 3 yrs personal tax returns
3. Call Live Oak for pre-qual ceiling
4. Fill David Choi's form for the Speed Queen financials
Illustrative 3-Year Projection — $525K purchase, $478K 7(a) loan, base case
| Line | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total revenue | $264,000 | $298,000 | $324,200 |
| Operating expenses | $163,000 | $185,300 | $205,300 |
| NOI | $101,000 | $112,700 | $118,900 |
| Debt service (10yr @ 9.25%) | $73,600 | $73,600 | $73,600 |
| Owner cash flow (pre-tax) | $27,400 | $39,100 | $45,300 |
| Business-only DSCR | 1.37x | 1.53x | 1.62x |
🧮 Reverse Deal Calculator — enter an asking price, see what the deal requires
Works backward from the list price using current SBA terms: what NOI and revenue the price implies, your down payment, the monthly loan payment, whether it covers debt (DSCR), and cash to close. Adjust the assumptions to pressure-test.
Learn the Business — free-first, ordered for a first-time buyer who'll own + operate
The whole education path, free stuff first. Full write-up + 1-week study plan: laundromat-education.md. Call-handling research: buyer-call-playbook.md.
This is where Dave is genuinely great, and it's all free. Years of how-to on the stuff you'll actually do: wash-and-fold, pickup & delivery, attendants & hiring, remodels, pricing changes, customer service systems, repeatable processes. Skip his paid course (it's buying-only); binge the channel and podcast instead.
Owner posts monthly profit/loss + coin-collection videos. The closest thing to watching someone actually run one, with the real numbers on screen.
▶ YouTube channelDaily reality of an owner: staff, repairs, cash, problem-solving. Good gut-check on what the job actually feels like before you commit.
▶ YouTube channel🧠 Operations cheat-sheet — what running one actually involves
- Daily: walk machines for error codes, clean lint traps/floors/folding tables/restroom, collect & reconcile coin/card against logs, restock soap + vending.
- Staffing: self-service + cashless can run on a part-time attendant (~$1–2k/mo). Add wash-and-fold + delivery and labor jumps to ~$4–8k/mo. Attendants ~$15–20/hr.
- Maintenance: a ~$200–500 quarterly service visit prevents the $700–1,500 emergency repair that always hits on a Sunday. Serviced machines use less water/gas.
- Pricing: self-serve ~$3–7.50/load (avg ~$5.25 in 2026). Wash-and-fold ~$1.25–2.50/lb (most ~$1.75). Watch local competitors; vary by load size/time.
- Peak demand: weekends (Sun > Sat) and weekday evenings 4–9pm. Staff and stock around that.
- The upside levers (what turns a normal store into our $30k/mo target): wash-and-fold, pickup & delivery, modern card/app payments, remote monitoring.
Owns mats, teaches the buying process. His free 3-part "How to Buy a Laundromat" course is the exact backbone of what we built here. Watch all 3 before any seller call goes deep.
- Part 1 — Find deals: 6-step system (public listings + brokers + off-market)
- Part 2 — Value it & make offers: NOI, equipment age, rent % of gross, lease years
- Part 3 — Due diligence: verify income, verify expenses, judge trajectory, find upside
Grew a $25K first store into ~$1.8M/yr across 4 stores. Strongest on actually running one: wash-and-fold, remodels, pricing, staffing. A husband-and-wife team, so a good model for our couple framing.
Polished owner interviews and thorough how-to articles with real numbers. Good for the financial framing — cross-check against our BUSINESS_PLAN.md.
Laundromat Girl (Cami) — nurse who bought in 2020, tripled her income.
Following Keenan — daily finances, staff, trends.
Search either on YouTube. Skip celebrity vlogs (Roman Atwood) — entertainment, not education.
The trade body. Paid membership unlocks webinars, training, and the annual Industry Survey (benchmark data). Join once you're near a deal. Free now: PlanetLaundry articles.
💳 Paid courses, priced & ranked (all optional — buying-focused)
Every one of these is about buying. You only need one if you want a packaged structure; our dashboard + Jordan's free course already cover the buy. Listed best-value first:
- UpFlip — Acquire Your First Laundromat — Dave Menz, 66 lessons / 4h38m, 90-day money-back guarantee, 75 downloadables + community. The guarantee makes it the lowest-risk pick.
- Dave Menz — New Owner's Course — $997 (or 3×$397; 20% off for members), 10 modules / 66 lessons / 7h, lifetime access. Thorough but ends at purchase and no refund policy listed.
- Jordan Berry — Laundromat Playbook — frameworks + 1-on-1 coaching + KPIs + mastermind. Strong community. Do his free 3-part course first; only upgrade if you want the hand-holding.
- Tom Donnelly — 30-Day Laundromat Ownership Mastery — $497 (was "$2,500"), 7-day refund. Real owner, but heavy "$15k/mo passive" marketing + perma-discount urgency. (This is the valuation playbook we already ingested.) Treat the hype skeptically.
- Udemy — Laundromat Ownership Step-by-Step — cheap (~$15–90 on sale), decent operations primer.
- Avoid / skeptical: FreeLaundromat.com ("get a laundromat for free" hype); anything promising guaranteed income, "proven system," countdown-timer urgency, or hidden curriculum — those are textbook course-scam red flags.
- Day 1–2: Jordan Berry's free 3-part course. Take notes against our Deal Modeler.
- Day 3–4: Dave Menz — 3–4 videos on operations, wash-and-fold, remodels.
- Day 5: UpFlip "How to Buy" + "Business Plan" articles. Cross-check our BUSINESS_PLAN.md.
- Day 6: Two owner vlogs (Cami + Keenan) to feel the day-to-day.
- Day 7: Skim CLA / PlanetLaundry; bookmark the Industry Survey for benchmarking real numbers.
Operations Playbook — distilled from 18 videos / ~367k words of real transcripts
I pulled and read the transcripts of the best operations videos from Dave Menz, Jordan Berry, and Laundromat Money. This is the synthesis. Full per-video notes with every number: operations-video-notes.md.
After a signed non-binding LOI + proof of funds, verify everything before closing. This is the checklist for our seller calls.
- Financials — 3-5 yrs P&L/returns. Utilities should be ~12-15% of sales on newer gear; 35-40% = old machines or hidden revenue.
- Lease — attorney redline (~$1k). 10yr + 5yr options. Watch clauses blocking WDF/vending/delivery. Sign at closing, never early.
- Equipment & inventory — itemize EVERYTHING w/ serials (tables, carts, tools too). Run a load in every machine.
- Customer base & float — transfer Google/social/email. NEGOTIATE the float (you inherit it).
- Operations — shadow busy Sunday vs dead Tuesday; observe as a customer.
- Competition — do laundry at rivals; check county permit office for new builds.
- Regulatory — ADA is the big one (bathroom, reachable kiosk). NOT grandfathered. Budget retrofit.
- Legal — pending suits, assumed contracts. Structure as ASSET sale (not the LLC).
- Branding — get trademark rights in writing (avoid forced rename + cease-and-desist).
- Insurance — you do NOT inherit theirs. Bind your own for day one.
- Employees — asset sale keeps employee liability with seller; a strong team justifies paying more.
- Future growth — often the biggest value driver. A zombie mat w/ great demographics + room for WDF can justify stretching.
For each competing mat near a site:
÷ driving distance to it
Higher = closer/better competitors = slower ramp for you. Map every mat in a ~15-min radius. Target a path to ~5 turns/day within 12 mo. (Best Wash, 16→38 stores.)
Real prices from Laundromat Money:
| 20-lb washer | ~$4,800 |
| 30-lb washer | ~$6,300 |
| 40-lb washer | ~$8,200 |
| 60-lb washer | ~$10,700 |
| 80-lb "Big Kahuna" | ~$15,500 |
| 45-lb stack dryer | ~$9,400 |
Payment mix ~35% card / 65% coin. Skew the buy toward 60/80-lb.
👥 People, hiring & culture
- Pay ~$3-4 above minimum wage to reach the reliable "Tier 2" labor pool. Below that you get no-shows and drama.
- Hire from: personal network → manager referrals → approach hard-working customers (~1 in 10 says yes) → Indeed/Facebook/Express.
- ~20-page signed employee handbook (CA-specific: meal/rest breaks, harassment training, sick leave). Wins unemployment disputes.
- 4-day checklist-driven training. Train the trainer, being good at a job ≠ good at teaching it.
- Bonus stacking ~$1-2/hr: $1/comforter, $1/logo bag, $10 per named 5-star review, $0.10/lb drop-off. Managers get a per-lb cut → 60-70% of their pay.
- Retention = culture + upward mobility (whole mgmt team started as attendants). "Hire with love, fire with love."
📣 Marketing, metrics & reviews
- Self-serve wins on Google Search ("laundromat near me"), not social. Searchers pick top-3 map results on reviews/photos/proximity.
- KPI = "new store visits" (Google-tracked). Case study: ~40 → 200 visits/30-day window drove +$4k/mo.
- Own your own ad accounts. Avoid agencies that pass-through your ad spend.
- Two loyalty reports that matter: New Cards Dispensed (new-customer proxy) + Active Accounts/period (retention). ~40% of customers = ~90% of lifetime revenue.
- Analyze WEEKLY (4 vs 5 Sundays skews months) + QUARTERLY for trend.
- "First wash-and-fold free" sign converts ~20% of self-serve to WDF.
💳 Payments, coinless & float
- Full card system ~$30-70k/store. Don't switch payment types, ADD them (coins → card readers → QR phone pay → loyalty kiosk).
- "Boil the frog": hybrid first, let coin users watch neighbors tap-and-go. Menz hit 65% adoption before going coinless; result +18% sales.
- Cash loyalty bonus $20→$25 dodges card-processing fees AND drives return visits (leftover balance).
- Cutover is an event: close mid-week to install, bright bilingual signage, over-staff ~2 weeks (~$7k) to hand-hold every customer.
- Float as profit: lost/abandoned card balances can fund the whole system. Card-only beats hybrid (more float, fewer per-swipe fees).
- ⚠️ Beware systems where the VENDOR keeps the float, loyalty attaches to their product, not your store.
🛋️ Semi-passive systems & scaling
- Hierarchy that frees the owner: attendants → store manager → ops manager → owner only on escalation. Plus a dedicated repair/facilities person.
- POS as anti-theft layer: track machine-start value as % of WDF ticket (~30% benchmark). Order-tracker + camera timestamps find a lost item in 1 min.
- Comforters: charge by the PIECE (~$40-50), never by the pound. Put "Comforters" on your outdoor sign.
- Best Wash: ~4,000 sqft box, 5.5 turns/day target, never raise an existing store's turns >25%. Be where customers SHOP, not where they live.
- Ramp is LINEAR / word-of-mouth; marketing doesn't shortcut it. Pickup/delivery takes ~4-6 months to move.
- Remote toolkit (Workmans, 1.5 hrs away): PayRange remote-start, smart cameras, Alexa announcements, timers, trusted on-site cleaner.
💰 Added revenue: WDF, delivery, dry cleaning
- WDF is the highest-margin line but "1,000% the hardest part" and not passive (forces W2 payroll).
- One owner grew WDF $3k → $70k/mo; modernizing intake (Curbside POS) took it $3k → $30k/mo.
- Pickup/delivery: start SMALL service area + expand; price from true per-lb costs built for scale; one brand shared with the store.
- Stabilize cash flow with a commercial/government anchor (Alyssa won a 6-year Navy-base linen contract).
- ⚠️ Dry cleaning in CA: the state is strict on solvents (shifting to "wet cleaning"). Phase-2 only; verify 92672 compliance + wastewater rules.
⚠️ The honest downside
- "Don't get one if you're not ready for a bunch of weird drama" (break-ins, vandalism, a passed-out customer).
- Downtime kills revenue: a broken change machine ≈ 20% of that week's business (customers lose trust, leave).
- Counterfeit/wet bills jam machines; lint/duct cleaning quoted ~$3k. Card systems remove a whole category of this.
- An older cash-heavy mat netted ~$128/day, "enough to keep the lights on, not to make money." The upside levers (WDF/delivery/payments) are what change that.
- Saturation: ~1 mat per 10,000 people. Run this test on 92672 before buying.
🤝 Creative deals & retirement math
- FI formula: your target annual income × ~5 = laundromat VALUE you need to own. $150k FatFI × 5 = $750k of stores ≈ 1-3 mats. Not 10-20.
- Two phases: "builder" (use debt, control more) → "harvester" (pay down, cash flow jumps). Most burn out staying in builder mode.
- Off-market: mail 20+ letters to owners; sellers often offer seller financing unprompted (capital-gains win for them).
- The Workmans bought 9 assets for ~$20k out of pocket via 100% seller financing, banks wouldn't touch it (no clean books).
- "Control the asset, don't overworry about price", down payment, amortization, and rate matter as much as the number.
- Prefer fewer, larger, efficient stores. "Rather own 3 strong stores than 8 mediocre ones."
Seller Call Script — follow top to bottom on the call
Pick the listing you're calling from the dropdown — it auto-fills what we already know and logs this call under that listing. Then work down the questions. Everything autosaves. The Fair Value box updates live so you'll know on the call if the price is reasonable. Don't commit to a price on the call.
📁 Logged calls (0)
▶ How to open the call (say this first)
You're a couple looking to buy a laundromat to run yourselves. Keep it short and human. You're just calling to learn about theirs, not to pitch. This call works best in your real voice (Aaron or his wife), since sellers give the business to people they trust.
"Hi, is this [their name]? Hi, I'm [your name]. My wife and I are looking to buy a laundromat here in the area, something we can own and run ourselves, and yours in [city] caught our eye. I'd love to learn a little more about it. Is now an okay time?"
If Aaron's wife is the one calling, flip it: "My husband and I are looking to buy a laundromat to run ourselves..."
What they might say, and how you answer:
- 💬 "Are you an agent or a broker?"
"No, nothing like that. It's just us, my wife and I, looking to buy one to run ourselves. No brokers, no commission on your side." - 💬 "How did you find me / get my number?"
"Your listing on [source]. It looked like a great fit for what we're after." - 💬 "Are you actually serious / qualified?"
"Yeah. We're lining up SBA financing now and can move quickly once we've seen the numbers. That's really why I'm calling, to see if it's a fit for both sides." - 💬 "What's your budget? What would you offer?"
"Honestly, too early to say. We'd want to see the real numbers first so anything we offer is fair to you. Once we've seen the financials we can talk price quickly." - 💬 "I can't share financials." / "Send me something first."
"Totally understand, it's sensitive. We're happy to sign an NDA. You can send yours over, or we'll send ours. Once that's in place you can send the numbers and we'll review fast."
Then get them talking (this is where you win the deal):
- "How did you get into the laundromat business?"
- "What are you most proud of about this place?"
- "What's making you think about selling now?"
Let them talk about 70% of the time. Don't name a price on this call. Be warm, don't over-promise.
📵 If it goes to voicemail: "Hi [name], this is [your name]. My wife and I are looking to buy a laundromat in the area to run ourselves, and yours in [city] caught our eye. We'd love to learn more. Could you call us back at [your number]? Thank you."
▶ The ask: NDA + financials (once they're interested)
Once they're warmed up and it sounds like a fit, say it like this:
"This sounds like it could be a great fit. We're a serious buyer, we're lining up our SBA financing now, and we move quickly. Could you send over an NDA for us to sign, and then the financials so we can review? If it's easier, we're happy to send our own NDA over. Once we have the numbers we can move fast."
Then request these (this is the full package):
- Last 3 years of tax returns (the one that matters most)
- Trailing 12-month profit & loss (P&L)
- 12 months of utility bills (water, gas, electric — biggest cost, hardest to fake)
- Current lease + any amendments (years left, rent, options, can it transfer)
- Equipment list — make/model/age of every washer & dryer, plus water heater/boiler age
- Coin collection logs or card-processor statements (the truest proof of revenue)
- Wash-and-fold / vending / ATM income breakdown
📌 NDA notes: brokers almost always require an NDA before sending financials — ask them to send theirs. Owner-direct sellers may not have one; offer to sign one (it builds trust). Aaron signs the NDA (he's the buyer), not Dana. Use the ✉️ Copy doc-request email button to send the written follow-up right after the call.
⚙ Google Sheet connection
/exec) so "Log to Google Sheet" sends each call to the shared sheet under assistant@lieberfilms.com. One-time setup steps are in research/laundromats/google-sheet-apps-script.gs.