From Construction Business to Laundromat Ownership: Real Estate Investing Lessons With Alex Bloom

Alex Bloom (00:00)
You got to be able to control the whole process. ⁓ short of inspectors, we can control the whole process. So not only do I have the construction company, a couple of years ago, I started a small plumbing company just to be able to have guys available whenever I need them and not rely on a plumber’s schedule. ⁓ My son became an electrician, so I have him at my disposal as well. So now we can pretty much handle, you know, everything, including all the mechanicals in any project.

Michelle Tack (02:00)
Hi, I’m Michelle Tack. Welcome to Real Estate Pro fueled by Investor Fuel. We’ve got a great operator with us today, Alex Bloom. Say hi, Alex.

Alex Bloom (02:10)
Thanks so much for having me on your podcast today, Michelle. I’m so excited to be here.

Michelle Tack (02:15)
Absolutely. We’re excited to have you here. One of the things I’m really super excited about is how you’re developing a business model around acquiring land that’s appropriate for a commercial use. And the fact that you have a number of other businesses as well, including construction. So you’ve got a multidisciplinary model here, but totally makes sense to me. And I think people would be very interested in how tight knit that is and being able to

fix your own problems and also continue to build out other businesses as you go along. So for those listeners that may not come from your world or know about it, ⁓ but want to take something away from it, ⁓ can you talk about, you know, what exactly ⁓ what your main focus is these days and what markets you’re in?

Alex Bloom (03:51)
Wow, I don’t have a main main focus I kind of focus on all of our little businesses So I have the construction company which pretty much handles a lot of commercial work and I have a really good project manager that handles a day to day So I’m actually not needed there to you know, it’s actually work on They call me with issues. I come meet inspectors. I kind of do that type of stuff I also have a couple of laundromats small chain that we operate that’s full service with everything from regular self-serve customers to wash and fold and pick up and delivery

Michelle Tack (04:06)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Bloom (04:21)
⁓ I also build out laundromats for our local distributor that sells some of the equipment. After building out some of our stores, they like what we did and they’re like, hey, would you do this for some of our other customers? That’s it, sure, you know, why not? I like to make money. So let’s see what you got. So we’ve been that for a couple of years as well, ⁓ which is really nice because my crews build my stores, they know what to do. So when we go into another laundromat, it’s pretty straightforward. They know.

Michelle Tack (04:35)
Right.

Alex Bloom (04:49)
Get right into it, do what you have to, and we’re in and out pretty quick.

Michelle Tack (04:52)
Yeah, what I like about your model is that, ⁓ before we go on, I know you’re operating in Massachusetts. Are there other geographical areas that you’re moving into, or is it mainly mass?

Alex Bloom (05:03)
So I’m mainly in Mass. I have one laundromat in Connecticut. ⁓ Connecticut border is like 10 minutes from us. yeah, so it’s pretty close. But my store is an hour from me. ⁓ But so far, that’s the only thing we have out of state. But who knows? Maybe we’ll move. Exactly.

Michelle Tack (05:09)
Yeah, right so far.

You never know, right? What I

like about when we prepared for this podcast is how you’re leveraging your capital from your construction business into something that you understand, right? In terms of building out the laundry business, right? And, you know, and that’s really important. You know where to buy the land. You know, I’m sure that there’s got to be a demographic, a geography that you know that

a certain income level will utilize the larger mats, right, et cetera. ⁓ And then you also have the construction piece of you still do construction for commercial real estate, is it fits sort of nicely together, doesn’t it?

Alex Bloom (06:35)
It’s actually, it’s really handy to have. So my customer work keeps my guys busy when I don’t need them. And then when I have a project for myself, I can switch them right over, bring them in, knock out my project. And now I got another laundromat or something like that. And then they go back to doing customer work. And I’m not worried about not having people to do it for my next store or something along those lines.

Michelle Tack (06:57)
Yeah.

I’m sorry, go ahead.

Alex Bloom (06:59)
So just having them around for that just kind of makes my life so much easier. And then if something breaks at one of my stores, I could just send somebody to go fix it. I’m not waiting on a maintenance call two weeks out waiting for a tech. So it ⁓ works very well.

Michelle Tack (07:12)
There’s a lot of things that have to come together, as you know better than I do, in terms of making all of that operationally function, right? You’ve got inspectors, you’ve got licensures, you’ve got plumbing, you’ve got all of this stuff. How have you been able to keep the machine running smoothly through the process?

Alex Bloom (07:32)
You got to be able to control the whole process. ⁓ short of inspectors, we can control the whole process. So not only do I have the construction company, a couple of years ago, I started a small plumbing company just to be able to have guys available whenever I need them and not rely on a plumber’s schedule. ⁓ My son became an electrician, so I have him at my disposal as well. So now we can pretty much handle, you know, everything, including all the mechanicals in any project.

Michelle Tack (08:00)
think that’s really instructional for people that are in the commercial business or thinking about expanding is really having those subject matter expert skills. In this case, you have it all in-house, in family is pretty unusual, I would say. And congratulations on that. However, every operator always has a moment where things get real, right? A project’s starting to slip or there’s a delivery date

on something and it’s being missed or a deal that’s starting to go sideways. Can you talk about, you know, any time that something was about to go sort of south and you’re able to catch it back and pivot pretty quickly? Any example is fine.

Alex Bloom (08:46)
⁓ yeah, we’ve had a few where architects would come in and architects love to ruin certain projects ⁓ And they would come in and they would move walls around and it would just make no sense And sometimes you feel like it’s just an extra month’s worth of work to achieve anything And a couple of times I would just take the pencil out of their hand. I’ll be like, what if we just move these two walls?

Michelle Tack (08:52)
Hahaha

Alex Bloom (09:06)
And now you have kind of the same result, right? And they’re like, ⁓ well, I didn’t think of that. I’m like, you guys must get paid per foot or something. But like, I just want to get this, get on with the next one. And we’ve had, I mean, that happens quite often where people with degrees overthink it, overanalyze it, and you can come in and save a ton of time and save your customer, you know, a bunch of change orders for no reason and everybody’s happier. And then you get repeat work out of it.

Michelle Tack (09:33)
That’s great. What you’re talking about is taking a no that we all get in life, like no, that’s not going to work, and looking at options of how it can work and it’s a benefit to the architect, but mostly to the end user, right? So that ⁓ there are always ways to, generally in businesses, to adjust and that’s really good. ⁓ So what’s the big…

Big next goal for you in your business. I know we talked about laundromats before, but can you expand on, you know, what I love about you, obviously have been very successful and very aggressive in your goals. Help me understand what the next maybe year looks like in terms of some, or maybe six months, the goals that you’re trying to achieve.

Alex Bloom (10:58)
Well, other than trying to find and open up more laundromats on the construction end, we actually bought a couple pieces of land and we’re going to do some new construction. Did some new construction years ago. Haven’t done any in a while. I’m kind of going to get, I’m going to get back into it. ⁓ I’ve expanded the construction company a little bit, bought some more equipment to kind of do my own excavations. So now I don’t have to.

Rely on an excavator. I’m fully licensed for pretty much all of it. So we bought an excavator. So now we’ll be doing our own digging as well. And we’ll probably end up starting to do our own foundations because relying on other people has just ruined stuff. So do it all in house and you avoid the headaches.

Michelle Tack (11:37)
what is that land that you’re looking to do new construction on? What type of construction are you focusing on?

Alex Bloom (11:43)
I’m looking to do like a kind of like a lower end new construction home to try to get first time home buyers ⁓ into a bracket where they can afford a new construction house versus some rundown house or a flip or whatever.

Michelle Tack (11:59)
like that. I like that. That’s being of service and it’s getting you some income and it’s helping that first time buyer given what’s going on in the market today. Can you, yeah it is. We had talked about previously this, network of what you do because it’s one thing to look at a podcast and go, geez, that’s great. I spent $500 for the, and I’m gonna buy this from someone that’s doing.

Alex Bloom (12:08)
Yeah. It’s a win-win.

Michelle Tack (12:25)
real estate investment and then you realize, holy cow, isn’t just, know, dabbling in this, this is long-term commitment. And what I found with talking for most operators that are successful, you’ve been doing this over 10 years, right? They have consistency and they have a network. So can you talk about that?

Alex Bloom (12:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I mean it’s not your net worth. It’s your network right so I’ve been doing it way longer than ten years I’ve started the construction thing about ten years ago, but I’ve been an entrepreneur ever since high school I found out early on I’m unemployable so I can’t actually work for somebody I don’t last very long and it’s nothing So being on my own pretty much since my my 20s my early 20s. I had a towing and recovery business

Michelle Tack (13:09)
wow.

Alex Bloom (13:10)
kind of where I started and I ended up selling that in 2016 before I got into construction. That’s kind of how it transitioned. But a lot of the people I met even back when I had the towing company, I still talk to today and they said, you know, leads. also, I go to a lot of the local chamber events and I’m a member of a networking group called BNI that we meet in person every week, every Tuesday. And all of those little things definitely help you grow because people will refer you.

⁓ I’m realtor, so on the construction side, other realtors I know send me leads all the time.

Michelle Tack (13:38)
Absolutely.

That’s awesome. That’s really important.

I appreciate that. And for those that are. Listening, you know this is a great way to get other ideas, etc. For those that may be interested in some of your services or what have you, Alex, can you provide your contact information? The best way to get a hold of you?

Alex Bloom (14:05)
Sure. You could either just follow me on TikTok. I’m @cashcycle. You can message me through there. I’ll try to respond. But I’ll be happy to answer questions if anybody has any.

Michelle Tack (14:16)
Okay, I really appreciate your involvement today. For those that are on the podcast that find this of value, continue to subscribe. And those that haven’t subscribed yet, please do, because there’s hundreds of these types of not necessarily exactly what Alex does, but there’s a lot of other content to take advantage. Again, thanks so much, Alex.

Alex Bloom (14:36)
Thanks for having me, it was a great time here.