Many pay-to-use(coin or card) laundry rooms in apartment complexes are entirely contracted out to a third party company that handles everything; payment collection, machine leasing, service/repairs, etc. On the whole I think it's easier for them this way.
The small apartment building I live in is set up this way. I don't really mind, but I wish they would find a way to accept cards (credit and/or reloadable) rather than only coins because as it stands right now, I have to go to the bank and get $50 worth of "laundry tokens" (quarters) every few months, since I don't spend enough cash day-to-day to naturally collect enough change for the laundry.
That's very interesting. In my MCOL of city I've been looking at buying some apartment buildings and many of them advertise the W/D in the building as a source of revenue.
Charging per-use prevents inefficient use (very small loads in large machines) and tenants letting their friends use the machines, eventually turning the laundry room into the free neighborhood laundromat.
Some buildings have switched (decades ago) to reloadable laundry cards to avoid having to deal with change.
It's to subsidize the cost of the machines and the electricity and water.
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.
Up front purchase price doesn't matter since it amortizes out over the life of the machine. All you're doing is paying up front for the downtime for service it won't need compared to cheaper consumer grade stuff.
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).
The commercial grade machines I've dealt with in SF apartment and condo buildings were worse overall than the non-commercial ones in Victorians and townhomes. They could take larger loads and washed/dried faster, but they had worse sensors, distributed detergent worse, ran too hot for drying, and slightly damaged some of my clothes.
Having some additional charge/busywork helps to throttle demand so people don't hog them as much and make some effort to economize usage. Depending on the people served, that may or may not be necessary.
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).
I use a laundry service to pick up my laundry, do it for me, and drop it off. (I wouldn't pay for it if I had a machine in my apartment, but I don't, so this is the tradeoff.)
I'm glad the cost of laundry isn't included in my rent, because I'd just be paying extra.
https://www.wash.com/360-laundry-room-solution/
https://www.coinomatic.com/multi-housing-coin-laundry-soluti...