Laundromat Buyer's Pack

The model

Fourteen sheets, with live formulas.

How to use

What to fill in, in what order, and how to read the results.

Inputs

The seller's figures: asking price, revenue, each cost line, machine counts, ages and replacement costs, vend prices, turns, water use, lease and state. Then closing costs, working capital, your loan terms and prefilled assumptions you can change.

Outputs

Each result beside its published benchmark, with a flag where the store looks out of line: earnings, price, turns and water checks, sources and uses of cash with an optional seller note, simple and lender cover, the machine reserve, your cash return and your equity IRR with a sale after five years.

Projection

Five years forward, the sale at the end, a downside case, and lender cover by price paid and revenue.

Lender summary

One printable page for a lender: the deal, sources and uses of cash, both covers against the SBA minimum, your return, the SBA write-off rate for loans that size, and the flags.

Seller checklist

The papers to ask the seller for, on one printable page, with a column to mark each one received.

Median example (3 sheets)

A worked example: the median store in the CLA 2024 survey at the median sale multiple, with the source of every figure. It fails the lender test.

High-margin example (3 sheets)

The same store with a margin in the top seventh of CLA stores, at the same multiple. It passes, just.

Sources

Every benchmark in the model, with its publisher, document, year, page and link.

Data

Commercial electricity and gas prices for every state, and SBA write-off rates for laundromat loans by loan size and approval year.

The guide

Nine sections. Every figure names its source.

1. 1

   The numbers in one page

   SBA loan outcomes, the median store from the CLA survey, and what stores have sold for.

2. 2

   What the worked examples show

   A median store bought at a median price, and a high-margin store at the same multiple, run through the model: why one fails the lender test and the other passes, and what a buyer would have to change.

3. 3

   Checking the seller's numbers

   Where each of the seller's figures sits among CLA-surveyed stores, what each flag means, and the papers to ask the seller for.

4. 4

   Do the turns and the water add up?

   Testing the seller's machine use against revenue and against the water bills.

5. 5

   How a laundromat makes money

   Vend prices by washer size, dryer pricing, wash-dry-fold and how many stores there are.

6. 6

   Paying for it

   Sources and uses of cash, the SBA minimum equity and upfront fee, seller notes and the SBA standby rule, term and rate cap, simple and lender cover, the machine reserve at dealer list prices, and the lender summary.

7. 7

   Five years, a sale, a downside and a price grid

   The projection, a sale after five years and your equity IRR, a downside case, and lender cover by price paid and revenue.

8. 8

   SBA loan history

   Laundromat write-off rates by approval year, against other businesses, and what the rates leave out.

9. 9

   Sources

   Every source, with its link and the date it was read.