By Sean Thomas, LaundromatExit. We own and operate laundromats in the Greater Philadelphia Region, and we buy stores directly across South Jersey, Philadelphia, and Delaware County, PA. About us

If you own a laundromat in Kensington, Fishtown, Port Richmond, Frankford, Olney, West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, the Northeast, or anywhere else in the city and you've started thinking about selling, this page should save you a few weeks of guessing.

We're not brokers. We don't list stores and we don't shop your numbers around. We buy laundromats ourselves and we run our own, so we already know what your collection routine looks like, and we won't ask you for a polished P&L that nobody in this business actually keeps.

→ Text or call about your store, 856-239-3203

Why owners decide to sell

We've had a lot of these calls, and the reasons repeat.

Usually it's the lease. Your renewal is coming, your landlord wants to raise the rent more than the store can support, and signing up for another ten years at this point in your life doesn't sound like the best idea.
Sometimes it's the equipment. You've got a wall of Speed Queens or Dexters pushing year sixteen, you've priced the re-equip, and the number is a lot.
Sometimes it's an estate. Dad ran the store for thirty years, you have a career, and now you own a laundromat you've been inside four times.
And sometimes the store is fine and you're just done. Twenty years of quarters is plenty.

What your laundromat is worth when you sell direct

There's no single sticker price for a laundromat. What a store is worth comes down to a few things we look at on every deal: how many years are left on the lease, how old the machines are, and whether the revenue holds up when we check it against the water usage. Two stores with the same weekly gross can be worth very different numbers once you account for those.

You have two different prices.

There's the number a broker puts on a listing, and there's what you actually keep after a commission, six to twelve months on the market, and a buyer whose bank may or may not come through. We're the second path. We pay cash, we price for speed and certainty, we close on your timeline, and there's no commission coming out of the back end.

When we talk, we'll walk you through how we get to our number, so it isn't a mystery. No obligation, and nothing about the conversation leaves the two of us.

We know how Philadelphia laundromats run

Every laundromat in the city is on one utility: the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD), the single municipal system that handles water, sewer, and stormwater across all of Philadelphia, more than 3,100 miles of water mains and 3,700 miles of sewers. Because every store in the city bills through the same system, we know exactly how to read a PWD bill and back into your real gross.

We also know how an older rowhome-block building's water and heating costs hit a laundromat's margin, and how a busy corner store prices differently than a quieter block. We buy across Camden County, NJ and Delaware County, PA too, so we read these markets every week.

How to sell without handing over your tax returns

Every buyer says "show me the books." Most laundromat owners don't keep books a bank would love, and in this business you don't need them, because water usage tells the story. Gallons in roughly equals turns run, and turns run roughly equals revenue. Give us copies of your water bills and walk us through your collection routine, and we can verify your real gross within a few points.

This protects you, not only us. An offer built on verified water usage doesn't get cut later during due diligence, which is a common tactic of our competitors, sadly. They win the deal with a high number, then chip it down before closing. Verifying from a water bill also takes days, while a financed buyer's lender can take months and still fall through.

Private and confidential

Confidentiality matters more with laundromats than with almost any business. Once word gets out that a store is for sale, attendants start looking for other jobs, wash-and-fold customers get nervous, and the operator a few plazas over starts talking to your customers. A public listing puts your plans in front of all of them for months.

We keep it discreet. It's one phone call and a quiet visit, and nothing about your sale becomes public until you decide it should.

How selling to us works

Text or call 856-239-3203. Or just send a photo of your store. Fifteen minutes, completely confidential.
We verify the numbers. Water bills, a quiet visit, and your lease terms. This part takes days, not months.
We make a written offer once the numbers check out, and we close on a timeline that works for you. Laundromat sales involve the lease, the equipment, and sometimes the landlord, so we'll be straight with you about the real timeline instead of promising a date we can't hit.

Questions Philadelphia sellers ask us

Do I have to tell my landlord I'm selling?

Not before there's a deal. Lease assignment or a new lease gets worked out as part of closing, and we handle those landlord conversations with you at the right time. Plaza landlords generally like laundromat tenants, because laundromats tend to stay put.

My equipment is old. Can I still sell?

Yes. Old equipment changes the price, not whether the store sells. We build the re-equip cost into our offer. In some cases an aging store is worth more to us than to you, because we're planning to re-equip anyway.

How can a store visit stay confidential?

We come in as customers. Nobody knows a buyer was there until you've decided to sell.

Find out what we'd pay

Text or call 856-239-3203, whichever's easier. We'll tell you, in confidence, whether we're your buyer and what a direct sale could look like. No cost, no obligation.

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