What should property managers know about laundry machines?
Laundry is an important amenity in a building that impacts: the ability to attract and retain good residents; operating expenses; and revenue.
The laundry amenity can also be a great source of aggravation – equipment malfunctions, service calls, clothing claims, lost funds, jammed coin slides, water leaks, venting issues, theft and vandalism, just to name a few.
Card-operated equipment provides some significant advantages over coin-vended machines, enhancing the net operating income contribution of a property’s laundry amenity and helping to increase the value of a building.
Card-operated machines:
- Remove cash from the building, reducing the potential for vandalism. It is not uncommon for thieves to peel back the top of a washer/dryer and coin box just to get at some coins/change.
- Make residents feel much more secure since the laundry room is cashless.
- Make it easier for residents and can stimulate increased usage. Residents are no longer restricted by their available mix of coins and they don’t have to worry about collecting change. There are many card reload options available, including debit, credit, cash and code-based reloads.
- Make it easier to implement increases in vends. Vends are restricted to increases of 25 cent increments with coin-operated equipment; with card-activated machines, vend increases can be implemented in penny increments.
- Make it easier to price vends appropriately with time of day and variable pricing options. Coin-operated equipment provides the same pricing options but property managers are restricted to 25 cent increments.
Despite the advantages of card-activated equipment, machines should not be purchased outright because payment technologies are changing rapidly. Rather, it’s advised that property managers take advantage of a third party laundry services supplier and its supporting infrastructure. With a supplier’s purchasing power, product choices and the various financial options available, property managers can tailor a program to suit their individual building situation.
Susan Reynolds is director of marketing at Coinamatic Canada Inc.
Great ideas here. My apartment building manager in Montréal told me when I moved in a year aga that they would soon be replacing / updating the laundry facilities, which are disheveled and broken (although they claim things are “okay”, this is not factually true). The card-activated machines are a great option for tenants, finding change for machines is a hassle and when it’s laundry day… that’s enough of a hassle already.
With the price of rent in the downtown core being as expensive as it is, it is really frustrating for tenants when their needs for reliable laundry facilities are completely ignored (speaking from experience).