How much rent is laundry and storage worth?
Several months ago my boyfriend and I bought a brick rowhouse with two 1 bedroom garden rentals. It has a fairly spacious basement with two roughly 16′ x 13′ work rooms that are accesible from the back yard. I’m debating putting a washer dryer in one of the work rooms for the renters and also…
Several months ago my boyfriend and I bought a brick rowhouse with two 1 bedroom garden rentals. It has a fairly spacious basement with two roughly 16′ x 13′ work rooms that are accesible from the back yard. I’m debating putting a washer dryer in one of the work rooms for the renters and also allowing them to use that room for storage. It will cost us some money to make the basement more easily accessible from the yard (reconfiguring some deck work and adding a lock to the existing door so it can be opened externally) plus there’s the extra water and electric charges.
I have no idea how much extra rent I should charge for these “amenities”. Any thoughts?
Calculate the cost of the appliances and the installation, spread it out over 5 years, figure the monthly cost, and add that to the rent. (In other words, take the total cost and divide by 60.) Maybe add a few bucks for water and electricity. You won’t get rich doing this. The real value will be renting the apartments faster and holding onto good tenants longer.
One of the best things about offering in hour laundry is attracting better tenants who want more ammenities with their rent money and making the rental process easier as some people won’t look at units that dont offer laundry. I think coinop for just two one bedrooms isn’t worth putting in, just regular units. Might be able to get an additonal $50 a month on each but I think the real value is come re-rental time
you can get pick up/drop off service for a month for probably less than $50 a month… and they fold it better.
$100 is wrong. Tenants say they want laundry, but they won’t pay extra for it. No premium.
i’d add $100 to the rent on each unit. having laundry in the building (even if you have to go outside to access it) makes a big difference to a lot of renters. storage less so but it’s still a plus, especially if you’re living in a 1br.
You could also put in a coin operated washer and dryer in for tenants. I also have a designated area for tenant storage in the basement. $1.25 for wash and $1.50 for dryer. No extra charge for storage. Tenants are more than happy with the setup since the charge for washer/dryer is cheaper than the laundromat and more convenient. The money put in pays for extra water/gas/electricity used by the appliances. If utility costs shoot up, raise the charge for the machines, much easier to do than adding to rent.
After nine years of renting an apt. that has a washer & dryer in the apt., I can’t imagine going back to using laundromats. I would value the cost to me personally at about $100/month (over a laundromat; less over having it in the same building), though I doubt renters would make the same calculation…
I provide separate full size washer dryers and unlimited basment storage at no extra charge to my tenants. Without these amenities, my rents would be the same. I do not observe that these amenities can command a market premium, ie tenants will not pay more for this.