An on-premise laundry (OPL) room is an excellent amenity to provide to your tenants, offering a convenient way to accomplish a necessary task with minimal effort. In fact, a recent survey found that a lack of laundry room facilities was the top reason that tenants would refuse to rent an otherwise attractive apartment.¹
Benefits of On-premise Laundry Rooms:
Providing laundry rooms is a smart move for landlords, because:
- Laundry rooms make your rentals much more appealing, which can help you to attract more tenants.
- You can charge a premium in rent for providing the amenity, as well as set up a new revenue stream for your residence.
- Quality amenities like a modern laundry room can help reduce tenant turnover – and associated costs of advertising vacancies and vetting new tenants.
- While laundry, utility, maintenance, and repairs are out-of-pocket expenses, you may be able to defray the costs with tax write-offs; or take advantage of tax credits available for the use of energy-efficient appliances.
However, just making a laundry room available to tenants isn’t enough. Take steps to optimize your laundry facility to extend those benefits, creating even more impact for a property manager or owner.
Laundry Room Tips to Maximize Results
Tips for landlords and property managers to make laundry services even better for tenants, and maximize benefits, include:
1. Upgrade Equipment
Machines that are in good condition with no maintenance issues are essential to overall satisfaction. One way to ensure that machines are in top condition is to give your tenants access to high-quality machines. In addition, new energy-efficient machines can significantly lower your utility costs.
While the cost of a full suite of equipment may seem prohibitive, renting equipment through a reputable provider can help a landlord upgrade their laundry systems at a fraction of the cost. The Laundrylux Laundry Equipment Subscription Service (LESS) can help you build or upgrade your tenant laundry facilities for a low monthly fee.
Learn More: How to Upgrade Commercial Laundry Equipment Without Breaking the Bank
2. Schedule Maintenance
Ensuring that your machines are properly maintained prevents breakdowns, which can frustrate tenants and lower satisfaction. And fewer breakdowns mean fewer expensive emergency repairs as well.
With a laundry equipment rental program like LESS, the monthly subscription can include more than just equipment; it can also include installation, service, maintenance, parts, and repair in a simplified, easy-to-manage, predictable monthly payment.
3. Keep it Clean
Because the laundry room is an area associated with cleanliness, the last thing you want to have is a dirty, dark, or unpleasant environment. A bright, clean space can have a significant impact on a renter’s overall impression of and satisfaction with the laundry experience.
A well-organized laundry room is easier to keep clean. Setting a flow, with a logical left-to-right progression from sort, to wash, to dry, to fold, helps with cleaning and maintenance, as does providing laundry carts, baskets, and lined garbage cans for tenant use.
4. Safety is Critical
A badly-organized or maintained laundry facility could harm more than a tenant’s satisfaction – it can be a safety violation, putting your renters at risk for slip and fall injuries, repetitive stress, or assault. Make sure that your laundry facility is accessible only to tenants, is bright and well-lit, and monitored in-person or with video surveillance. Paths between machines should be easy to navigate, clear of obstruction, and machines should be set up with attention to ergonomics.
5. Consider the Experience
A laundry room is a communal space where tenants will meet one another on a semi-regular basis. Take the tenant experience into account and think about providing laundry room amenities to improve that experience. For example, you may install a vending machine for laundry supplies, or one for snacks and drinks if your tenants wait in the laundry room for their cycles to finish.
You may also consider taking advantage of a card-based, or app-based payment system, to eliminate the need for coins and to make things more convenient for users. In addition to allowing for cashless transactions, the LaundryPay app also allows tenants to check machine availability or receive text notifications of cycle status so that they can monitor status remotely.
With an organized, upgraded, and clean laundry facility, you can improve overall tenant satisfaction while maximizing the benefits to the property manager, including lower utility costs, increased revenue, and reduced renter turnover. Laundrylux can equip your laundry room with top-of-the-line laundry systems, engineered to work with one another to provide the best possible OPL experience.
Contact Laundrylux today to learn more about how you can improve laundry facilities for your tenants.
References:
1. https://www.realestateforums.com/content/dam/Informa/realestateforums/2018/caic/PDFs/CAIC18_Amy.Erixon.pdf