I've never understood why the cost of that isn't included in the rent, landlords can't be taking that much of a cut from it.
https://www.wash.com/360-laundry-room-solution/
https://www.coinomatic.com/multi-housing-coin-laundry-soluti...
https://www.payrange.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/PR_Broch...
Only downside is the prices went up a quarter. It is convenient though.
Some buildings have switched (decades ago) to reloadable laundry cards to avoid having to deal with change.
The machines are commercial grade, depending on the amount of tenants they will have high wear and will cost to purchase $3000 each. Minimum of a set is 2 so $6000.
If you use a management company that deals in laundromat and repair, the capex is not there but you'll ave a monthly opex of about $50-100 that should include a guarantee and onsite tech. Per set.
It scales up pretty quickly because you can, maybe, push a one set onto 4 units.
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But it's also a sign of cheaper locations and landlords to not have your own washer/dryer inside.
I used to do facilities maintenance for a hotel. We weren't space constrained in terms of laundry so we ran a fleet of cheapo consumer machines. One was down at any given time but it was still cheaper than introducing fewer high grade commercial machines. We had some commercial stuff that was ancient and still worked. Didn't break much less but it was easier to work on (primarily because age) when it did.
Obviously if you want to minimize downtime because you're an absentee landlord who has to pay a PM company to do a visit every time a lid sensor fucks off then having commercial machines makes sense. In terms of dollars per load the cheap consumer stuff is in fact cheaper, assuming you don't live in a regulatory capture hellscape where you are supposed to have a plumber connect your drains and gas lines (or are willing to ignore those rules).
I think in CA, such charges are limited by the same laws as rent control, so at least they tend to be under-priced. At one I lived at (if SF's Tenderloin), it charged well below what nearby laundromats did per load ($1.25 vs much more for similar size).
Because they're a massive cash cow that people don't think about when comparing price of rent vs what you get.
I'm glad the cost of laundry isn't included in my rent, because I'd just be paying extra.
