The Laundromat Trifecta: Cash Flow, Equity Buildup, and Tax Advantages Explained

Laundromat Resource (00:00)
I think going into this, felt like I was bulletproof and I learned that I’m not bulletproof. But with that also, one thing I’ve learned is that wherever you’re at in life, you’re gonna have struggles, right? And those struggles are real and…

you know, there are times in life where you’re just under what feels like a tremendous amount of pressure.

Quentin (02:01)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am very, very excited about this podcast episode today. I’m excited to be here. I got a gentleman. I don’t think on this podcast, had a chance to talk about this specific topic, but you can look, you already see, probably can read what his moniker is at the bottom, LaundromatResource. So we’re to talk about Laundromats.

But listen to me, this ain’t gonna be no boring episode. This gentleman, the way he has laid things out, it has me rethinking about laundromats and the antiquated mindset, right? Because this gentleman said to me, he got a tripod. Do you wanna talk about cashflow? Do you wanna talk about equity buildup? If you wanna talk about tax advantages, let’s talk laundromats. Yeah, so yes, that probably perked y’all up a little bit, right? Because when y’all hear those three things, you might be like, wait a minute, what?

So I cannot wait for you all to get the chance to listen to Mr. Jordan Berry. Mr. Jordan, how you doing today,

Laundromat Resource (03:08)
Quentin Man, I am super pumped to be here chatting with you about Laundromats and real estate today. We won’t leave real estate out because I do a little bit of both and excited to chat with you, man. Appreciate you having me on.

Quentin (03:19)
Absolutely not. Well, listen, I ain’t going to this leave real estate out. know you ain’t either. But here’s the thing, laundromats, last time I looked, they sit on real estate. That’s the time I thought, is that right? Yeah. OK. So we in the business, man. We in, bro. But no, I’m joking. But I appreciate that. Because I think it’s all related, right? And already talking to you already know that we ain’t going to have to pander. All this is going to all make sense.

Laundromat Resource (03:29)
That’s right. That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Quentin (03:48)
once we get to the end of

Quentin (03:49)
I want to dive right in. All right, Jordan. And our tech team will take care of all that. if I, hopefully I don’t have any more problems. If I do the same thing, I’ll come back, I’ll come back in. So yeah, but let’s dive in brother. Let’s, I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. Jordan, I would love for you to give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got started into this space, even in the real estate space altogether. I love the origin stories.

Laundromat Resource (04:02)
Yeah.

No problem.

Quentin (04:17)
And man, tell them what part of the world you’re in. where you are, how you got, what you’re doing, origin story and where you are. Mr. Jordan, sir, you have the floor.

Laundromat Resource (04:27)
yeah, so was a pastor and a youth pastor, 14, 15 years. ⁓ And, you know, around that point, I had two young kids at the time and ⁓ a wife. And I was looking to make a transition out of doing that vocationally. And, you know, still involved in church, still involved in ministry, all that stuff, but wanted to do something different vocationally. And so trying to figure out what to do with my life. ⁓ You know, all my ex-

work experience was a pastor, I seminary and stuff, so schooling was pastoral, so I was like, what do I do with my life? And

we, at the time we lived in Southern California, owned our house there, and I told my wife, hey, why don’t we do this? Why don’t we rent out our house in Southern California, take the money we have in the bank, and our two young kids, let’s buy a condo on the beach in Hawaii, and you know.

do whatever and I don’t know, sell jewelry on the beach in Hawaii, I don’t know. And my wife said we could do that or we could buy a laundromat. And so we ended up not buying a condo on the beach in Hawaii and we bought a laundromat instead. And the reason that this came up, which is funny, if you knew my wife, you’d know this is a really funny suggestion for her because it is not like her to say something like this. But.

She had a family friend who was working a tech job in the San Francisco Bay area, making really good money, but working 70, 80 hours a week. And he bought one laundromat, replaced his tech job income and was working 10 hours a week. And we’re like, yes, that’s the goal, that’s the dream, why don’t we just do that? That sounds great. So that’s what we did, we ⁓ bought a laundromat. And I’ll tell you, Quentin, man, it did not.

Quentin (06:57)
Mmm. Mmm.

⁓

Laundromat Resource (07:03)
go

that way for us. It was rough. We bought what I call a zombie mat and it basically a fixer upper laundromat and you know, was, you know, it was rough and, and you know, this is mind you, this was maybe, you know, 14 years ago now. There really wasn’t a whole lot of information on.

how to own a laundromat, how to buy a laundromat, how to do due diligence on a laundromat. There really wasn’t information or resources to do that back then. And so we relied on this family friend who had a very clean, very easy experience and didn’t really have to learn any hard lessons. And our broker who turns out was just trying to sell us whatever he could sell us. And so he sold us a business that was just, it was rough.

We put on all new equipment, we did a remodel on it. But one lesson I learned pretty quickly, well, not quickly, it took me a little while to learn it actually was it’s way easier to rehab and remodel a laundromat than it is to rehab the reputation of the laundromat. So I spent a lot of money rehabbing the laundromat, spent $0 rehabbing the reputation of the laundromat. And because of that, we lost money for a couple of years probably. ⁓

It was rough because you know, the goal here was to have money coming in and not a whole lot of time invested in it. Right. And because of the way that I bought this laundromat ⁓ and because I didn’t know what to do with it, ⁓ it ended up being the exact opposite. We were losing money and I was spending a lot of time over there trying to figure out, you know, what, what to do. Right. And this is, there’s, there’s a stat that floats out around there. I’m not sure exactly how accurate it is, but

Stat is that Laundromat have a 95 % success rate. And it is high, I don’t know if it’s 95%, but it is high, very high success rate. But I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t do this easy business. Everybody else could figure it out. How am I in the bottom 5 % of this business? I just struggled and I decided, you know, I could either try to dump this thing or I could,

know, stick with it and try to figure it out and stuck with it and figured it out. And now here I am on your podcast talking about laundromats.

Quentin (09:27)
Hmm. ⁓

Laundromat Resource (09:36)
Yeah, I know how it goes. The struggle is real.

Quentin (09:35)
Listen, man, thank you, bro. Thank you for the orgy, sorry. Thank you for taking us through

the journey. Just quick, you know, just tell you little parallels. My dad’s been a pastor for over 40 years. I’ve done seminar, been in ministry. And so, you know, I actively weave in.

you know, that kind of part of my life into the podcast, you know, not trying to, you know, browbeat people, but you know, it’s who we are. I like, I love the fact that you led with it, man. And so youth pastor for over 14 years at a time, two kids, wife, went to seminar from Southern Cal and said, Hey babe, let me show you the dream book. That’s by a

Laundromat Resource (10:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Quentin (10:53)
on the beach in Hawaii.

And your wife said, no, we gonna buy a laundromat. know, and so I love how you said zombie mat. Oh man, I love that, bro. I love how you took us through the journey. And I love the insight of rehabbing the reputation, how you didn’t spend enough time doing that. Cause I can just think about laundromats in my part of, you know, where I live and how when somebody take over that, we already like, we ain’t going there. We don’t care who you are. And so I love the mindset of rehabbing the-

Laundromat Resource (10:57)
That’s right.

Hahaha

Mm-hmm.

Quentin (11:25)
reputation. And I want to say that I say this every time, once every podcast, Jordan, I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning no matter what you go through in life, these moments make up where we are now. Like we borrow from each moment. We may borrow mindset, we may borrow discipline and resilience. We, but we borrow from different moments to make us who we are now. And so Jordan, you laid it out perfectly, man, the journey.

Laundromat Resource (11:46)
Mm-hmm.

Quentin (11:54)
I would love to know what have you learned about yourself within this journey? What comes to mind? What are some of the adjectives or words that come to mind, that you have bought all these moments and learned about yourself?

Laundromat Resource (12:09)
Yeah,

I think going into this, felt like I was bulletproof and I learned that I’m not bulletproof. But with that also, one thing I’ve learned is that wherever you’re at in life, you’re gonna have struggles, right? And those struggles are real and…

you know, there are times in life where you’re just under what feels like a tremendous amount of

And that was early on in that first laundromat. That was the point of life that I was in is I was under a tremendous amount of pressure. I felt like a failure. was losing money. had two young kids and wife. just quit my job. My wife wasn’t working. We’re just trying to figure out how to make life work. it, it was a lot, right? And

But you know number one You know those moments don’t last forever Right and that can be a hard lesson to keep in mind when you’re in the midst of those things If you’re out there listening to this going through a difficult time, they don’t last forever. So keep that in mind number two is one of the the unexpected byproducts of going through that phase for myself was I Didn’t realize

that you can grow the amount that you can handle, right? It expanded me and probably, and I look back now, know, like there was a time where I was like juggling bills, like do I pay the water bill or do I pay the gas bill for the laundromat, right? Like, you know, if I don’t pay the water bill, they’re gonna give me three months and they’re not gonna charge me interest, but if I don’t pay the gas bill, gotta do it, right? So I’m like, make like, those just felt like overwhelming decisions. And after having gone through that now,

they don’t feel like such big deals anymore, right? Like if I’m in that situation again, I just know I’ve got to make wide decisions. I got to do the best I can and then just let it go, right? And so the problems that I can deal with now, like my capacity to deal with problems has grown quite a bit. And ⁓ I never really thought of it that way, but that’s part of like going through life is learning how to deal with larger and larger problems. And as you’re building wealth,

as you’re having a bigger impact in your community, things like that, the problems get bigger. And so if you don’t go through any difficulties before you get in those roles, you’re not gonna have the capability or the capacity to handle those problems. So it’s just part of life and it’s part of the process. Not a pleasant part all the time, but ⁓ it is part of the process and it is the only path that I know of at least to be able to achieve whatever goals you have, you’ve got to go through some of those difficult times.

Quentin (14:45)
Yeah.

Yeah. So listen, when you started talking, I actually wrote down the word capacity. Once you started unpacking it out and then you knock on the word. So I’m

going talk like this because I can talk like this to you.

Scripture says that Jesus learned obedience through suffering. like out sometimes our capacity grows through the tough times. And that’s just that’s how it grows. And and I think.

Laundromat Resource (15:54)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Quentin (16:02)
Somewhere in just our DNA of, you know, scripture creation DNA is that that’s part of us learning the capacity is just going through some of the hard times. Trial come to make us strong, right? Even scientifically, and I wish I can remember the part of the brain, but there’s a part of the brain that doesn’t even get touched and expand until you actually go through difficult times.

Laundromat Resource (16:07)
Yeah.

That’s right.

Quentin (16:30)
Like, you know, and I wish I could call out the part, but that’s, it’s some part that doesn’t even touch and grow unless we’re dealing with difficult things. And so it’s just part about wiring. And so I appreciate you. Thank you for the gift, what I call the gift of your vulnerability, because I try to, one of things I try to do here, and I ask that question specifically about destiny and what has it taught you, because no matter what business you’re in, the constant thing in that business is you.

Laundromat Resource (16:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Quentin (16:58)
⁓ so, I thank you for just your self-awareness, man, and the way you… I love saying this word, stick-to-itiveness. It’s one of my favorite words, but I love how you’re just sticking to it, What’s the next real goal for you, sir? What are you looking to solve at Scale Next with the business?

Laundromat Resource (17:15)
Well, ⁓ listen, I got to say ⁓ the journey has evolved along the way by multiple laundromats and working with operating partners and implementing new technologies. ⁓ I mentioned to you, think before we hit record that, ⁓ you know, we’re from Southern California and, you know, the original goal was, you know, to go to Hawaii and we chose to do a laundromat instead and it went wrong and kind of went off course a little bit there. But I got to say like right now looking over the

Quentin (17:43)
⁓ this

is getting…

Laundromat Resource (17:46)
I’m staring at the Pacific Ocean from our house in Hawaii. This is actually from our front yard, this picture behind us here. ⁓ And so, you know, the journey is, you just don’t know, right? You just don’t know where the journey is gonna take you. And this is not to say like, you know, everything is exactly how we want it to be. It’s not, I mean, there’s still more to go. And really, you know, I think the…

The place where I’m at in life now is less about where I wanna, how I wanna grow the business. It is about that, I do think about that a lot too, but it’s also like, how can I make the biggest positive impact right now, right? Is that opening more laundromats? that, you know, I’ve got the Laundromat Resource Platform where if laundromats are a great way for you to achieve your goals.

We wanna make sure we help you get there, right? So that’s great. But really I’m looking for opportunities to just make positive impact here and help in big ways and small ways, ⁓ help people build the lives that they wanna build and help them achieve whatever their goals are. ⁓ So that’s what it’s about. mean, probably that means more laundromats in my future is my guess, ⁓ but I don’t…

I don’t know yet. I’m in a phase right now where I’m like taking stock of life and enjoying life. You know, my kids are getting older. My son’s about to turn 15 and my daughter’s 12 and has written two books. And you know, I’m just trying to enjoy those guys right now as, you know, my time is limited with them being at home still. And so, ⁓ you know, but it’s always this balance of figuring out, you know, what direction to go in life and.

and enjoying where you’re at, but also looking to see where God wants to take you.

Quentin (19:38)
Yeah, yeah. No, I love it, man. And listen, you hit on you. You hit on a word

that I like to talk about. You didn’t say it, but you hit on it. The word relationship. Right. And so I just want to get your perspective on relationships. Period. Business, personal, just when you hear the word relationship, what comes to mind, what feeling kind of evokes a thought invokes in your head when you hear that word?

Laundromat Resource (19:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. ⁓ I mean, think the thing that comes to mind is that the core of life, right? Like, you know, whether it’s relationship with God or relationship with family, friends, business partners, like life is not meant to be lived alone, right? Problems are not meant to be gone through on your own. You know, we’ve talked about, I think before we hit record, but we talked about ⁓

you know, mastermind groups and mentors and things like that. You know, business partners, like this life is not meant to be lived alone, but being an entrepreneur can be very isolating, right? Being a business owner can be very isolating, very lonely, you know, quote unquote, normal people who, don’t do this to themselves. They don’t understand a lot of the problems, the stresses, the difficulties that we go through as business owners. So.

⁓ When you ask me what I think about when I hear relationships, I mean, think it’s the core of life. It’s what it’s all about. so finding and surrounding yourself with good people is probably one of the most important things you can do in your life, whether that’s in business or in your friendships, in your families. ⁓ And then kind of on the flip side of that is being

Quentin (21:15)
.

Laundromat Resource (21:28)
the kind of person that people want to surround themselves with. It’s really easy to focus outward, but ⁓ we also got to be the kind of people who our family need us to be, who our friends want to be around and we’re to be bringing them up and who people want to partner with in business.

Quentin (21:48)
listen there, let’s wrap this up because I absolutely love you talking about.

being around the people that you want to be. I mean, I love that. I think that’s a great philosophy. Listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,

Laundromat Resource (22:09)
Yeah, yeah, so Laundromat Resource is a platform, LaundromatResource.com. We’ve got a podcast, we’ve got a YouTube channel, all the socials. Jordan, J-O-R-D-A-N @LaundromatResource.com is my email address. Happy to talk Laundromats with you, happy to talk real estate investing with you. I do both, I like both,