We’re Buying a…Laundromat?

by Laura Dobbins   |    Blog

[This is the first in a series of early blog posts documenting the purchase process of our first laundry back in 2014. Enjoy.]  

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!

So a whole heck of a lot has been going on at our house lately. (Not sure why I’m stating that as something notable. There’s pretty much something always going on at our house.)

We’ve been talking for a long time about owning a small business.

We already knew it had to be a business that was structured just right to allow us to keep our day jobs (semi-passive income), required an initial investment of less than $50k (this is the most we’re comfortable parting with right now), and could either be run from our home or within a short distance of it.

Needless to say, most business models don’t fit that criteria.  Until a very special opportunity came along.

It was an opportunity to purchase a semi-passive business, requiring an initial investment of less than $50k, that is less than a mile from our house.  Perfect.  What is it?

A self-service coin laundry.

It’s been a neighborhood fixture, running successfully for nearly 40 years. And after weeks of intense research and working closely with the broker, we made an offer to the seller. And crossed our fingers.

(Note: Our purchase offer is contingent on a whole boat-load of things, that are yet to be confirmed…income and expense verification, reviewing of the lease, etc, etc.  So we can get out of the contract if we need to.)

Two nights ago, our offer was accepted.

Now we start the due diligence process, of verifying everything. If all checks out and goes as planned, in a few months we will be the new owners of a small coin laundry business.

I’ll be updating the blog every so often to talk about the process of acquiring an existing business, what kind of return we expect to see on our initial investment, and how we plan to use this business to further build our investment portfolio towards early retirement.

I’m going to refrain from revealing exact purchase price figures until we’ve closed escrow, out of respect to the seller and others involved. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of things to talk about until then, and once the process is complete (one way or the other), I’ll dig into all the juicy numbers.

So I invite you to join us in this journey…I’m sure we’ll all learn something new along the way.  (There really isn’t a dull moment around here, is there?)