Associations Who Own Their Own Laundry Machines (Washers/Dryers)?

Started by BlakeO1 • 11 replies • 75 views

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BlakeO1 (Illinois)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Hi, Fellow Condo Board Members. After decades of leasing washers/dryers from third party services for our common area laundry rooms, we care considering buying our own. Have any of your associations done this? If so, I would like to talk to you about your experience.

DeanJ
Posts: 1,792

Posted:

I was once in a COA that owned their own machines. Generally, the machines are not utilized as frequently as laundromats. There are also quality variances ranging from slightly better than residential quality with coin drop to real commercial grade machines. You get what you pay for.

BlakeO1 (Illinois)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By DeanJ on 07/10/2026, 7:04 PM

I was once in a COA that owned their own machines. Generally, the machines are not utilized as frequently as laundromats. There are also quality variances ranging from slightly better than residential quality with coin drop to real commercial grade machines. You get what you pay for.

Hi, Dean. What I was interested in was if the cost of repairing the machines over time was fairly low, making it a better deal than leasing machines from a third party. Do you have any knowledge of that? Was your COA happy they purchased the machines?

BryonW (Massachusetts)
Posts: 61

Posted:

Hey BlakeO1 - we own our machines at my property. I like it overall, and would not switch to leasing.

One benefit of owning our own machines is we get a much better ration of machines to apartments. A leasing company told us they'd only be willing to service us if we reduced to about half our current number of machines. This way they'd have to invest less capital in our property, but our residents would bear the inconvenience. We obviously didn't move forward with that.

We have Whirlpool Commercial machines. We have 14 machines (7 sets of washer & dryer). The whole property got new machines in 2010. 11 of these machines are still in service. The remaining 3 machines were replaced 1 each in 2024, 2025, 2026. So average service life is over 15 years. I am pretty satisfied with this service life.

For the replacements we are now going to SpeedQueen. They cost a little more (price today is ~$1100 for a Whirlpool, $1600 for a SpeedQueen). The difference is that the speed queen has more modern electronics, which is compatible with electronic payments. Although we currently do coin-op only, we are hoping to add a smartphone app payment option in the near future.

Our maintenance costs have followed the "bath tub" curve pretty well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

Maintenance costs were very low during the middle years of the machines lives, but, now that the machines are old, we are seeing a big up-tick in issues. For each of the 3 machines that we recently replaced: it broke, we tried to have the appliance company repair it, we sunk a few hundred dollars, only to have it declared "unrepairable", and we replaced it anyway.

In 2024 and 2025 we spent a total of about $3,000 on laundry machine repairs. I think the lesson is: make sure you are keeping up your reserves, so that when the machines get old, you can just replace them, and not try to mess around with repairs at end-of-life. (my property has not done reserves well, thus why we are always trying to repair old machines. It's throwing good money after bad).

Hope this helps!

BlakeO1 (Illinois)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By BryonW on 07/11/2026, 12:15 AM

Hey BlakeO1 - we own our machines at my property. I like it overall, and would not switch to leasing.
One benefit of owning our own machines is we get a much better ration of machines to apartments. A leasing company told us they'd only be willing to service us if we reduced to about half our current number of machines. This way they'd have to invest less capital in our property, but our residents would bear the inconvenience. We obviously didn't move forward with that.
We have Whirlpool Commercial machines. We have 14 machines (7 sets of washer & dryer). The whole property got new machines in 2010. 11 of these machines are still in service. The remaining 3 machines were replaced 1 each in 2024, 2025, 2026. So average service life is over 15 years. I am pretty satisfied with this service life.
For the replacements we are now going to SpeedQueen. They cost a little more (price today is ~$1100 for a Whirlpool, $1600 for a SpeedQueen). The difference is that the speed queen has more modern electronics, which is compatible with electronic payments. Although we currently do coin-op only, we are hoping to add a smartphone app payment option in the near future.
Our maintenance costs have followed the "bath tub" curve pretty well:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
Maintenance costs were very low during the middle years of the machines lives, but, now that the machines are old, we are seeing a big up-tick in issues. For each of the 3 machines that we recently replaced: it broke, we tried to have the appliance company repair it, we sunk a few hundred dollars, only to have it declared "unrepairable", and we replaced it anyway.
In 2024 and 2025 we spent a total of about $3,000 on laundry machine repairs. I think the lesson is: make sure you are keeping up your reserves, so that when the machines get old, you can just replace them, and not try to mess around with repairs at end-of-life. (my property has not done reserves well, thus why we are always trying to repair old machines. It's throwing good money after bad).
Hope this helps!

Bryon -that helps enormously! And it jibes with the research I've done on my own. We are looking at Speed Queens too (for the same reason, the coinless app) and I am prepared to move on from the machines after 12-13 years. Thanks for your reply - much appreciated!

JeffT2 (Iowa)
Posts: 893

Posted:

The machines will give you some new income, which you need to track for income tax forms. Also expenses to offset the income.

BlakeO1 (Illinois)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JeffT2 on 07/11/2026, 10:07 AM

The machines will give you some new income, which you need to track for income tax forms. Also expenses to offset the income.

Thanks, Jeff. But that is my question: does the new income far outweigh the expenses?

BryonW (Massachusetts)
Posts: 61

Posted:

I can provide data on expenses and break-even cost too.

We currently charge $1.50 wash + $1.25 dry = $2.75 per load. Its not quite enough. Given our local utility rates, our break even would be about $3.25 per load. Our board will be discussing an increase soon.

Here is the spreadsheet that I use to track expenses, and calculate break-even price. (it has been sanitized to remove all names and property addresses, as per site policy):

https://user.fm/files/v2-964a3cd97f2b964e3004f70a725f9489/Laundry%20-%20cost%20per%20load%20analysis%20-%20sanitized.xlsx

Ideally the goal is to set your price right about at break even. You don't want a large profit, because this could create tax issues. (HOAs are supposed to be non-profit). Others on this forum can discuss the tax implications in more detail, I am not a CPA.

BlakeO1 (Illinois)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By BryonW on 07/11/2026, 1:08 PM

I can provide data on expenses and break-even cost too.
We currently charge $1.50 wash + $1.25 dry = $2.75 per load. Its not quite enough. Given our local utility rates, our break even would be about $3.25 per load. Our board will be discussing an increase soon.
Here is the spreadsheet that I use to track expenses, and calculate break-even price. (it has been sanitized to remove all names and property addresses, as per site policy):https://user.fm/files/v2-964a3cd97f2b964e3004f70a725f9489/Laundry%20-%20cost%20per%20load%20analysis%20-%20sanitized.xlsx
Ideally the goal is to set your price right about at break even. You don't want a large profit, because this could create tax issues. (HOAs are supposed to be non-profit). Others on this forum can discuss the tax implications in more detail, I am not a CPA.

Hi, Bryon. Actually, my concern is a bit different. What I need to know is the annual expense of maintaining and repairing the machines (and how many you have). The more years of this data that you can give me,. the better.

Some background: here in Illinois, the companies that lease machines to us are, in my opinion, big ripoffs.

First, they all require TEN YEAR leases. At the start of that lease, they provide new machines.

Then they take a large percentage (75%) of the money from the laundry income.

Further, the contracts all have loopholes where, if you miss a deadline to notify them you want out of the contract, you are locked into another ten year lease.

For these reasons, and what I think was a mistake by our past boards, our association has been locked into a lease for 30 years with the same company. The machines are 30 years old and break down a lot.

The last board missed the last ten-year deadline.

Now that I am on the board, I am making dead sure that we don't miss the upcoming one (September).

And what I am trying to sell the rest of the board on is the idea of buying our own machines and giving up on these awful leases. But fort that idea to work, the income we make from our machines has to outweigh (a) the cost of purchasing these machines and (b) the expense of maintaining repairing over the course of, say, 15 years.

Thanks again!!

JeffT2 (Iowa)
Posts: 893

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By BlakeO1 on 07/11/2026, 10:46 AM

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Quoted Post:
Posted By JeffT2 on 07/11/2026

, 10:07 AM

The machines will give you some new income, which you need to track for income tax forms. Also expenses to offset the income.
--------------------------------------

Thanks, Jeff. But that is my question: does the new income far outweigh the expenses?

If your association’s laundry revenue exceeds its maintenance and operating expenses, the excess is generally considered taxable income. To minimize your tax liability, you can often offset this profit by depreciating the cost of the new machines over their useful life. I think utility expenses can be allocated to this as well.

I don't have experience with the machines. My point is just that accounting and paying taxes are another factor to consider when going this route.

BlakeO1 (Illinois)
Posts: 6

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JeffT2 on 07/11/2026, 2:13 PM

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Quoted Post:
Posted By BlakeO1 on 07/11/2026

, 10:46 AM

--------------------------------------
Quoted Post:
Posted By JeffT2 on 07/11/2026

, 10:07 AM

The machines will give you some new income, which you need to track for income tax forms. Also expenses to offset the income.
--------------------------------------

Thanks, Jeff. But that is my question: does the new income far outweigh the expenses?
--------------------------------------

If your association’s laundry revenue exceeds its maintenance and operating expenses, the excess is generally considered taxable income. To minimize your tax liability, you can often offset this profit by depreciating the cost of the new machines over their useful life. I think utility expenses can be allocated to this as well.
I don't have experience with the machines. My point is just that accounting and paying taxes are another factor to consider when going this route.

That's an excellent point, Jeff. I will definitely make sure we pay attention to this issue. Thanks!

BryonW (Massachusetts)
Posts: 61

Posted:

Ok, I understand what you are looking for, but unfortunately I don't have good historical data to share. Past boards and managers at my property did not keep good enough records.

And, even if I had historical data, "past performance is no guarantee of future results".

So ultimately, you will have to sell your board on this idea using estimates / projections of the future. This is somewhat similar to a "rent vs buy calculator" such as:

https://www.realtor.com/mortgage/tools/rent-or-buy-calculator/ (conceptually, home price = purchase price of laundry machines, and rent price = cost of leasing machines)

You'll probably need to build your own spreadsheet, but looking at this calculator might give you a good idea about what categories to include and how to structure your analysis. (especially all the categories under "Show Breakdown").

Be sure to consider the difference in the price per load. If you get your own machines and set the price at break-even, it will likely be much lower than what the leasing company charges. I bet this will be one of the biggest drivers of the financial analysis.

And when I am doing this sort of analysis, I always try to include "what-if" tables (also called "sensitivity analysis") for the important variables. Such as the price per load, the number of service calls per year for repairs, perhaps the total number of loads. With this, you can change an uncertainty ("we can't predict how often the machines will break") into a conditional statement like ("we are better off owning our own machines if there are fewer than X break downs per year."). Then board members can think for themselves about whether X seems high or low...

Here is an intro to sensitivity analysis:

https://www.exceldemy.com/build-a-sensitivity-analysis-table-in-excel/

Hope this helps!

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