From Laundromats to Powerful Life Lessons of Success with Jordan Berry

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Matias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erika, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Well, Erika, sometimes things don’t go as planned. Welcome back to the REI Agent. I’m Matias, one of your hosts, and we are here with Erika, my lovely wife and co-host.

[Erica]
Which thing that didn’t go as planned are you referring to?

[Mattias]
Well, we had some technical difficulties with our camera. So forgive if you’re watching this on video. We’re a little bit dark, and I think that the camera was searching for focus due to some settings that I thought I corrected.

I tried to use a different lens. Yeah, anyway, sorry about that, guys. If you want to listen to the audio, it should be totally fine.

If it’s distracting, just, yeah, just look away. Look away. No, but we had my daughter is home for Indigenous People’s Day, Columbus Day?

Not Columbus Day. Oh, okay. Indigenous People’s Day.

And she came in with an emergency and let the dog in because the dog would follow us anywhere. But anyway, so she came in and needed to be logged into Netflix.

[Erica]
She just said she couldn’t access Netflix. To her credit, she came in very quietly and crawled on the rug and sat right here beside me and said she was out of the camera view the entire time.

[Mattias]
My first reaction, and honestly, it’s not a great one. I get why can’t you wait? Why can’t you wait?

And we knew this was happening. Like, you could have waited. You could have watched something else.

Like, there’s a lot of things you could have done instead of coming and interrupting. But I was listening to our guest, Jordan, too. But in my mind, it kind of took a second.

I was like, you know what? She’s a kid. It’s okay.

This is very important to her. This is her moment to watch TV, which doesn’t happen very often. And she really wants to watch something on Netflix.

So it was very, very important to her.

[Erica]
So what reaction would you like to have?

[Mattias]
I mean, honestly, at the end of the day, if she would have been on screen, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, right? Like, I mean, like, it’s, oh, hey, like, you know, I think, you know, welcoming her and embracing her probably would be the best approach, even though she was, you know, there with you, but like having that kind of mentality versus, you know, just frustration.

[Erica]
It’s funny. My initial reaction wasn’t anger. It was more trying to read her face and figure out whether it’s an emergency, because there have been some things going on, just in how she’s been feeling recently, physically, that, you know, like, do I need to respond to something?

How do I figure out if it’s an emergency or not without disrupting the guest in the podcast? That was my first reaction. And then I was like, oh, she’s in second grade.

She can read. So we were sending, like, text messages. I mean, kind of writing on the text message pad, like, back and forth to each other.

And then we figured out it was Netflix. And I said, you can wait 10 minutes, and we’ll be right out. But just in my mind, I was thinking, oh, my gosh, what if it is something that, like, she’s in a lot of pain or she needs help with something.

And, you know, I can’t just push that away. And then how do I handle that? That’s me being in, how do I be in professional mode and parent mode?

At the exact same time.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s another response. But, I mean, she would have also been screaming if something was wrong. But anyway, it reminded me also of, you know, this weekend, you went to, had a weekend out, a girls weekend.

You went out and hung out with some of your best friends.

[Erica]
I had a great weekend. Yep, we went up to the mountains in a condo cabin. We went hiking.

I haven’t been hiking alone in years.

[Mattias]
Normally, you have to carry me up the mountain when I get cranky.

[Erica]
Yeah, I was just thinking about, I mean, the last time I was hiking was not that long ago. It was in Switzerland in July. But that was probably one of the most beautiful places in the world.

And I didn’t feel like I could be present to it because not everyone around us in our family was enjoying the hike. I wasn’t you. So anyway, it was a beautiful fall day.

The colors were pretty vibrant. And it was a hike that hiked up along the waterfall the entire way there. So you don’t have to wait until the end to get to the nice part.

And then, like, I know this is going to sound really cheesy. But once I got to the top, there was, like, a beautiful overlook. We were in the sun.

It wasn’t too hot. And I had, like, the best apple. And I don’t usually eat apples for whatever reason.

I don’t know. I don’t love them. But that one, it was, like, exactly what I wanted.

It was so delicious. Oh, I just sucked it in. So I had a great weekend.

You were at home with the kids.

[Mattias]
I was home with my kids. And yeah, so, like, the responses that I was just having kind of also reminded me about, you know, like, how I was with my kids the whole weekend. I was able to really focus on them.

I didn’t have too much work that I needed to get done. If I did have work, I could kind of, like, say, hey, I have, you know, three kids with me right now. I can’t really get to you right now or whatever.

I was able to delegate pretty well my time. But no, I had a really good time. I think it’s interesting when you leave.

Like, I think we kind of all go into these, like, different modes. Like, the kids, I think, also kind of like, okay, so now what do we expect? We’re kind of on this new adventure.

What are we going to do? Which could be good or bad. And I tried to run with the good and, you know, kind of be like, hey, this is going to be an exciting weekend.

We’re going to do all this fun stuff. So we had the neighbor kids come over. We did a movie night.

We had them practice a song for a talent show. We had the PA system and the mic out there they could sing to. And we went to a little jump park.

And so just trying to fill up the time with things they can look forward to. And also things like, hey, look, if you’re not getting along, if you’re choosing to be nitpicky and fight each other, you’re not going to be able to do this. So having that leverage, too, was really helpful.

But one thing I’m really proud of this weekend was to really try to help them understand. There are two oldest girls. They can get in this mode that they’re just going to be like sassy to each other.

They kind of can get a little bratty to each other. Or what’s the right word? But I thought they’re kind of like, you’re stupid or things like that.

And then it just spirals into getting mad and kicking each other and screaming. And I would tell them, hey, we need to reset you will not be able to earn this thing if you continue with this kind of behavior. And then once they do, I went back and I explained to them, look, do you see how much more fun you’re having right now when you’re not focused on tearing another person down?

And you notice how the other person is also being kind to you when you’re not focused on tearing them down, but you’re being nice to them. And all that to say is that we actually then went as far as building or we created a poster. I want to print and put in the room.

We used AI and we just wanted a cute animal picture. So they chose a unicorn and a narwhal. And it was supposed to be really happy and rainbow-y, color-y kind of thing.

With the headline with like the big words on top, you get what you give. And I’m hoping that can be some sort of mantra in their heads a little bit. I think it’s a fairly simple thing that even a four-year-old can start to grasp.

But hopefully they can, more than just like, if they’re mean or kind to their sister, they’ll get that back. But I think that if they can learn that more deeply and think about it, if they work really hard, if they put a lot of effort out into something, they’re gonna get more return for it. And kind of taking ownership of their life and not just focusing on, well, she did this to me, so I’m gonna do this to her.

That’s not helpful. You have control in how you respond to that person. You have control in how you respond to your environment.

That’s the one thing you have control over. And that’s how you can directly impact what comes to you from there on out. In a unicorn and a narwhal picture.

So I was happy with how the weekend went. We were all very glad to have you back there.

[Erica]
Yeah, you held a little seminar.

[Mattias]
I did not break out the PowerPoint presentation. But that’s to come. They are in for something when they get a little bit older.

I think they’re gonna probably get a lot of speeches.

[Erica]
It was interesting when I came back home, what happened in the first, well, I don’t know, 40 minutes.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Erica]
And then it sort of evened out. But as soon as I walked, I mean, as soon as I pulled in the driveway, it was like an emotional explosion happened.

[Mattias]
It was like a dam bursting or something.

[Erica]
Yeah.

[Mattias]
They were holding you in.

[Erica]
It was everything all at once directed in every different direction.

[Mattias]
Yeah. You know how when a dog’s scared or something, they’ll sometimes attack each other, if you know what I’m talking about? They’re not necessarily mad at each other, but they don’t know how to handle their energies.

They’re kind of like that. But they were fighting each other too, like the girls, at least. Sawyer was kind of doing something.

But yeah, it was this very, and then, yeah, it was 40 minutes, and then we were able to reset.

[Erica]
And then everybody was fine. It makes me feel like I need to, like when I come home from those trips, I need to put on like football gear or something or like a helmet. Yep, yep.

Yeah, and I have to come home and be ready to work.

[Mattias]
Yeah, it’s unfortunate that it has to happen. I mean, and I think that, I think one of the things that we can be intentional about, and actually one of my, this accountability group mates, he tries to take his kids on a solo parenting trip or something every quarter. And so this is, I mean, kind of similar to that.

We kind of thought we’d take them on a trip as well. But having that intentional time of me being with them alone, I think is really helpful for maybe getting used to that, knowing that it’s okay if mom’s not around, knowing that dad can also answer questions.

[Erica]
Okay, I will work on booking my next trip. I hear you, I hear what you’re saying.

[Mattias]
You used quarter four up.

[Erica]
We need to have him more often.

[Mattias]
Got it. But no, I think it is really important. I think I really connected with pretty well this weekend.

So it is an important thing.

[Erica]
Yeah, well, I have a conference next month in about three weeks. So you’ll get to keep working on those seminars. Part two.

Anyway, we had Jordan Barry here today.

[Mattias]
Jordan is coming out of Orange County. Jordan got into the laundromat business and has a pretty crazy story. That was not as smooth as you might have expected.

But kudos to him because he’s stuck through it. He owns multiple and he is teaching others how to do the same.

[Erica]
Yeah, he has a, let’s see, a coaching program, lots of different resources for anyone who’s interested in getting into the business. And he was a lot of fun to talk to you also.

[Mattias]
He did just a little teaser. He mentioned that normally you’re expecting about up to like a 20 or 20% return on your money and your investment. That’s not finance, that’s not leverage so that he gets better if you leverage.

So it can be a really lucrative investment. He is also an agent. And so encouraging, basically, this could be a route for other agents to start building a passive income as they go to help balance out their ups and downs with market swings and cycles and times of the year.

But without further ado, Jordan was an awesome guest. So let’s have him on, Jordan Berry. Welcome back to the REI Agent.

We have the honor of speaking with Jordan Berry. Jordan, you’re coming out of Orange County and you are a laundromat specialist. So welcome.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, well, thank you for having me on the show. And you know, it’s kind of a weird, nobody’s ever put it that way. And it feels a little bad to be a laundromat specialist.

It’s not super exciting, but I guess I am a laundromat specialist, yeah.

[Mattias]
No, but it is a very interesting model. I have heard a couple of thoughts about how to like kind of nuance that space a little bit more than people might expect, which we could maybe chat a little bit about as well. But I also have a friend that he operates a laundry business out of his basement.

He’s in a townhouse. He does like a pickup and like delivery kind of service for basically people that are just, you know, don’t have time to do their laundry and he provides, fulfills that need. So wherever there’s a need, I mean, we need to fill it, right?

[Jordan Berry]
That’s right. Yeah, that’s exactly right.

[Mattias]
What brought you to the laundromat space? Let’s start with that, how’d you get there?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, well, you know, as a kid, I was just dreaming of owning a laundromat someday. Said no one ever. No, so, you know, I was a pastor and a youth pastor for almost 15 years.

And when, you know, I married, had some young kids and it was just time to transition out of doing that full-time. So I was trying to figure out what to do. And like you said, I live here in Southern California.

We own our house here and I had a great idea, which was why don’t we rent out our house here in Southern California, take the money we have in the bank. Let’s go buy a condo on the beach in Hawaii and, you know, do whatever, like who cares? Like sell jewelry on the beach or whatever in Hawaii.

And then if our kids are school-age and we wanna come back, we can come back. Net gain condo on the beach in Hawaii. My wife said we could do that or we could buy a laundromat.

And so we bought a laundromat and not a condo on the beach in Hawaii. Wow. The idea behind that was she had a family friend who he was working a high-tech, you know, a tech job in the Silicon Valley.

And he was making good money, but he was working 70, 80 hours a week. And he bought one laundromat, replaced his income and was working five or 10 hours a week. And we’re like, yeah, that sounds great.

Let’s do that. So that’s the direction we went. It did not turn out like that for us early on there, but that was the motivation behind it.

The start.

[Erica]
Okay, when you and your wife had that original conversation about should we move to Hawaii or buy a laundromat, was that an easy decision between the two of you or was there some like back and forth? Like, well, I mean, Hawaii sounds kind of nice.

[Jordan Berry]
It felt like an easy decision for me, but apparently not. I spent many nights in that laundromat in Hawaii being like, or in that laundromat, I mean, I could be in Hawaii. Yeah, I could be in Hawaii right now.

So yeah, I mean, it was a tough decision, but I mean, I saw the idea behind it and I was like, okay, well, maybe that just delays our journey to Hawaii a little bit, but sets us up in a better position. So yeah, I mean, it was a little tough, but moving to Hawaii is a big move and buying a laundromat down the road is not as big of a move, or at least it didn’t feel like it. So it was a little tough, but we were both on board.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome. I was thinking about our relationship dynamics because I feel like I would be both the person wanting to move to Hawaii and the person wanting to buy a laundromat.

[Erica]
That’s probably true. I’m trying to think what my response to that would be.

[Mattias]
I don’t think you would have come up with the laundromat idea, but you would have helped make sure that we did a smart move.

[Erica]
Yeah, I get to pick the laundromat. You said when you first started, it didn’t, I forget how you worded that, it didn’t work out as planned. There’s a box there.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, so I mean, the idea behind buying a laundromat for us, and I think a lot of people, I think this is what makes laundromats so intriguing for a lot of people is you can make a pretty good return on your money. Just for context, the average base hit laundromat deal, it’s going to net you 20% to 25% return on your money unleveraged. Once you throw a loan on there, it can go up from there.

Like I mentioned, you can run these things with very little time commitment if you set it up that way. You can also run it with a lot of time commitment if you set it up that way. But I think that that’s what was appealing to it for us, but it ended up being, I’ll just be candid with you since you’re psychoanalyzing me anyways.

I’ll just put it all out there. I’m just kidding. No, but I mean, I didn’t know anything about business.

I didn’t know anything about real estate investing. I didn’t know anything about laundromats. I didn’t know anything about anything really and I did as much research as I could, but this was over a decade ago now and there really wasn’t a whole lot of information out there like there is now on how to run this business.

I relied almost entirely on the broker, the one person who stood to gain from me buying this laundromat. It just turned out that broker did not do me any favors and he sold me a dream that was never going to happen with that particular laundromat that he sold me. I mean, we lost a lot of money early on and spent a lot of time trying to figure out this business.

So instead of money coming in with very little time, it was money going out and I was spending a lot of time doing it. So it pretty much worked out for us early on there, exact opposite of what we were going for.

[Mattias]
But kudos to you for sticking through and continuing and it sounds like you figured out the mistakes or the misled, unfortunately, parts of that. How do you now approach deals to circumvent that kind of problem?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, it was rough. Learned some very expensive lessons there. I mean, it’s why I do what I do now with sharing how to get in this business and how to run this business.

Online and having a podcast also and all that because I was like, man, nobody should have to learn the lessons that I learned the way that I learned them. I’ll just tell you the lessons, right? So yeah, but it was rough there early on for sure.

[Erica]
Did you have a mentor, somebody you could bounce ideas off of who could teach you things too?

[Jordan Berry]
Not really, I did not. So I spoke with the family friend a little bit but his experience was just so different than ours. Once I kind of got in and realized what had happened and that things were not going to turn out the way they did for him, at least initially.

I mean, he just didn’t know how to help me which was understandable because he just had a very different experience. He bought his laundromat, it was a good one and he was making a lot of money doing it and having fun. I was not having fun and losing a lot of money.

And I didn’t know anybody else in the industry at the time and I did try to reach out to people and there were people who kind of gave me some advice and then there were other people who were like, I don’t know, thought I was trying to spy on their businesses or whatever and would yell at me and kick me out of their store. I don’t know, I was like, I was grasping anyway. I was desperate for a little while there just I know there’s a way out of this, just I don’t know what it is.

And there’s a stat that floats around here and to this day, I’m not entirely sure where it comes from but the stat basically says 95% of laundromats are successful and so I just could not believe that I was in the 5% that can’t figure out this easy business. But then there I was, not able to do it. It was rough.

[Erica]
I was just going to ask, what’s the culture of where you’re living? In Orange County, in California, are you, what’s the city, town, culture like in terms of owning businesses and people, community there I guess is what I’m trying to ask.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, so well here in Orange County, I mean there’s a lot of business owners here in Orange County. I really like Orange County, it’s very friendly. My laundromats however are in LA proper, LA and East LA.

[Erica]
Okay.

[Jordan Berry]
And so it’s very different feel over there for sure. So and a little more competitive over there, it’s just densely populated and there’s a lot of laundromats over there. So it gets pretty competitive.

[Erica]
Is that like a every person for themselves kind of a culture or I’ll help you out, I’ll look out for you?

[Jordan Berry]
So my early experiences was like an every man for himself for sure, like I just, I was not getting help. And honestly, like, I mean, I didn’t know exactly where to reach out for help. There were no like, there’s an association and I reached out to them too and it just, it didn’t help me very much at the time.

I mean, and again, that’s why I created the platform I created in the community that I’m trying to put together and all that because I didn’t have that. You know, when I was going, when I needed it.

[Mattias]
That makes a lot of sense. Do you still own that one or did you end up offloading it?

[Jordan Berry]
I just sold that one about a year ago, a little over a year ago. Yeah.

[Mattias]
And you own others, I imagine then, like you since bought more and tell us a story about like how you moved into your next one.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. So yeah, so the next one, I was in the throes of losing lots of money and trying to figure out this business and I got an off market deal brought to me that was a seller finance deal and it came with the real estate in LA. And so it was kind of like this unicorn and I was like, okay, this is, you know, I made the mistakes early on but I’m not making those mistakes again.

So that deal came to me while I was still struggling with this first one. It was, I don’t know, maybe like nine months later. So I ended up buying that one too, seller finance deal with the real estate and the laundromat and running that.

One thing I found, which that was great, but one thing I found was that when you are still struggling with one business, I was hoping, okay, if I buy this other one, this other one’s performing well, it can help me cover this one until I get this one up and running, right? That was the theory. But one thing I found was that when you’ve got problems over here on one side and then you take on something else, well, there’s inevitably gonna be problems over here.

And one thing I say a lot is like, you know, people want passive income that gets thrown around a lot in real estate world and otherwise, right? And while you can make laundromats pretty passive, they’re not passive. Anytime you’re dealing with machines or people, you’re gonna have problems and laundromats have a lot of both of them, right?

So you get problems that come up and all it did was sort of divide my attention between the problems, which I think made it slower to get this one up and profitable, the first one up and profitable. So it was good and bad decision kind of all at the same time.

[Erica]
Yeah, what are some of the surprising things that have popped up with machines and people owning these laundromats?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, so, you know, most laundromats, especially in LA, but all over, most laundromats, you know, you’re in a demographic that’s probably a lower income demographic and sometimes the areas are a little rougher. My laundromats are in rougher areas. So, I mean, there’s a lot of stuff that comes up, a lot of like vandalism or people trying to break into machines or, you know, get free washes by figuring out ways to try to scam the machines, you know, that kind of thing.

So all that stuff happens, graffiti, all that. All that stuff happens and there was a lot of other stuff that happened, a lot of some crazy stuff that went down too. But, you know, the other side of it though is that I’ve found like, you know, one of my laundromats is in South LA, right?

It’s like where all the 90s gangster rappers came from on the West Coast over here, right? Like rough area, but I’ll say like, even in these rough areas, like 98% of the people are great people, right? And so, you know, it’s just a small minority that makes, I think probably most rough areas, rough areas, right?

And so that actually was surprising on the good side of like, hey, you know, most of these people are really great people. And, you know, the reputation is one thing, but when you actually get in those communities, which is one of the benefits of laundromats, by the way, is that you actually have an opportunity to make a difference in a community and do something good for a community. Most people are great people.

[Erica]
Yeah, I’m sure too, if you spend time there, you probably have the same people coming in. I’m sure people like the routines, you know, they probably come in and wash their clothes at the same time every week. And you just, you got a couple hours to kill.

And so you just hang out and chat.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, yeah. That’s what I call like a habitual business or like a rhythmic business where, you know, usually you got the same people come in on the same days at the same time, you know, more or less. And so you really get to know people there and people get to, you know, it’s one of the few places that people still in the community, at least still come together, you know, on a regular basis and meet each other face to face.

So they are kind of unique businesses in that way. And I think that’s part of what makes them great actually. That’s cool.

[Mattias]
Can you break down what financing typically looks like for these type of properties? So like, I mean, I would imagine you mentioned earlier that the one came with real estate, I know that was owner finance. But if, so I would imagine sometimes you’re buying business and then you have to continue to rent the property, correct?

Can you finance the business at that point? And what does that look like?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. Yeah. So one thing I found, like I’ve done, you know, consulting now all over the country and beyond for the last, you know, handful of years.

And so one thing that I’ve noticed is that much more often the laundromats come with real estate if you’re in the middle of the country and much more often you’re leasing the space if you’re on one of the coasts, which, you know, makes sense. Real estate tends to be more expensive on the coast and all that. So, but, you know, both can be true anywhere.

You can rent or buy anywhere. So if you’re renting, yes, you can buy the business, you can finance it. A lot of people assume that the value of a business is in how much the equipment costs, which by the way, the equipment is not cheap.

It’s expensive. However, the value of the business is valued like any other business or commercial real estate, right? It’s in the net income and then you’re going to apply a multiple to that net income.

And so based on that, you determine a value. And then in terms of financing options, there’s lots of different ways you can finance. Sometimes you can use an SBA loan, although sometimes you can’t because SBA really wants to see everything in line and, you know, all jokes aside, all laundering money jokes aside, you know, I sort of, I guess not all jokes because here’s a sort of half joke, which is sort of half joke, half true is that I always say laundromat owners are either really bad at keeping the books, like just, or they don’t have any, or they’re really good at keeping the books. So maybe they have more than one book even, you know?

So yeah, so SBA doesn’t like that, sees that as risky. And so, you know, a lot of laundromats aren’t going to qualify for SBA, but some do. There’s, you can get a, you know, conventional bank loan from a bank or credit union.

There are laundromat specific lenders that you can use. Typically they’re going to want somewhere in the 30 to 40% down. So you can’t leverage as much usually unless you’re using SBA.

As much as real estate, but still not bad. And then obviously, you know, the mythical unicorn of all investment, which is seller financing, which actually is more common in laundromats than in something like real estate. But that also is a double-edged sword because it’s more common because a lot of times it’s hard to verify the income, the expenses.

And so a lot of times it’s harder to get financing. So if a seller wants to sell, they either got to find a cash buyer or sell with some seller financing. So you just got to be careful in that situation, but it can be a great way to acquire a business too.

[Erica]
When you sold your laundromat, did you do seller financing?

[Jordan Berry]
I had a cash buyer for mine. So it’s interesting because of, I think a raised profile online from like Cody Sanchez, you know, Brandon Schlichter from Investment Joy, all the people collecting quarters online. I don’t know, maybe seeing like TikToks or whatever people collecting quarters and having fat stacks of cash, like that’s very, you know, draws the eye.

And so it’s kind of raised the profile of laundromats. And so right now there’s probably more buy demand than sellers at the moment. So, you know, finding buyers is easier than it has been in the past.

[Erica]
Wow, that’s so interesting.

[Mattias]
So when you have a place up and running pretty smoothly, what’s your time demand up per laundromat if you could average that out? Like we were talking about how could this be a good opportunity for real estate agents to maybe buy a side hustle or buy something that is passive quote unquote, right? To kind of even out the ups and downs of the market.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, totally. So in, I’ve got, well, so I’m a real estate agent and I’ve got other buddies who are real estate agents that have bought a lot of goods. So you for sure can do both there.

So I’m gonna answer your question, but I need to qualify it by, it depends a little bit on the business model that you have, right? So self-serve laundromat, you know, you may only need on average five to 10 hours a week and 10 on the high side, like if everything goes wrong, you know, you can set it up to where you need that. And especially now where there’s more technology tools, resources than ever before to help you sort of manage your business.

A lot of machines will tell you when things are broken down. There’s digital payment systems. So you don’t always have to do the coins, which is not good for TikTok probably.

But it makes managing the business a lot easier. So, you know, accounting’s all kind of embedded in there. So there’s some things that really help streamline stuff, you know, cameras where you can have two-way talk.

So something’s happening, you don’t have to drop everything. You can just pop on your phone and be like, hey, get out of here, I’m calling the police. So five to 10 hours is, you know, pretty common there.

Now the business can actually be more than just what we think of when we think of laundromat. The service side of the business is actually growing hugely right now, which is like drop-off laundry or pickup and delivery laundry. And that, you know, since COVID especially has been booming when people started realizing, I don’t have to do laundry ever again.

Somebody will do it for me. They’ll even come to my house and pick it up dirty and leave it on my doorstep, clean and folded. And so, you know, depending on how you run that business, you may have that all set up to where, you know, you’ve got employees driving, you’ve got employees, you know, processing the laundry and the software to help run it all.

And again, that only needs a little bit of oversight, especially if you’ve got, you know, a business that’s doing well enough to have sort of a manager helping you run it. But it might be a little more time involved there if, you know, if you’ve got the service side of the business, so you might be more like 10 or 15 hours a week.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s interesting. And then maybe you could segue to talk about it. I think I saw even people were approaching Airbnbs for that service as well.

So doing the linens for the Airbnbs. Is that something you’ve looked at?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Short-term rental.

There’s a lot of actually small businesses, you know, spas, salons, restaurants, small motels or hotels. There’s a ton of different small businesses that can give you, you know, you know, decent bulk order that’s on a regular basis to help you kind of lay a foundation for that pickup delivery when you’re starting it. And then when you add residential on top of that, it can be a really great business.

A lot of laundromats doing a lot of money every single month doing that pickup and delivery or drop-off laundry. That’s awesome.

[Erica]
Have you looked at laundromats outside of the country in different areas around the world too?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, yeah. I’ve had a few people from outside of the country on the podcast before. So I’ve had some people from Europe, some people from Southeast Asia, some people from Australia.

And I’ve got one coming up from South Africa in a couple of weeks here. So yeah, definitely looked all… Oh, and South America also.

Yeah, in Brazil. So yeah, I’ve definitely looked at laundromats. And it’s interesting because they’re very different than here.

Here, the trend has been going towards larger laundromats, larger machines. Like we’ve got, you know, 80 pound, 100 pound, 120 pound machines, which is, you know, probably our top loader ones, maybe like 12 or 15 pound. And so when you’re 10 X in that, these are big machines that you’re doing everything all at once there.

So that’s the trend here is going bigger stores and bigger machines. But in a lot of these other places, small stores are actually, you know, with five or eight machines. Those are actually much more common.

So Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, even Australia, I’ve seen that being the trend.

[Erica]
That’s what I was curious about. Has anybody paired it with like a coffee shop while they’re sitting there waiting for their laundry to be done?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. Coffee shops, bars, salons. Anything where restaurants, I mean, anything where you, you know, when you’re doing laundry, if you’re doing your own laundry, right?

You’re just sitting there for a while. The machine does its thing, right? So it can be a lucrative business model to have something else for people to do, to spend their money on while they’re spending their time at your place.

The one thing that you need to consider though, if you’re going to do that, is that now you’re running two businesses. So you, you know, again, you’ve got to sort of be savvy enough to run two businesses, I guess. But yeah, it could be a great model.

For sure, people are doing stuff like that.

[Mattias]
I’d be curious. That makes me think of, okay, we’ll buy a piece of real estate and then lease out, sub-lease, or lease out spaces to other people that want to do that kind of services. But then that brings in the question of how much do machines cost and how hard is it to get started up?

Like I would imagine the, you said the machines were very expensive. So like getting a one up and running from nothing is probably not very easy.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, so, so if you were, if you were buying the real estate and you’re like, hey, you want to rent it out to somebody, probably you’re not the one buying the machines. They’re the one buying the machines. Right.

But to kind of answer your question, yes, it can be tricky, not just because the machines are expensive, but you’ve got to probably, if it hasn’t been a laundromat before, you’ve got to build it out, which means you got to make sure things like, you’ve got the right size water line. So you have enough water coming in to feed all the machines. You’ve got the right size drainage.

You’ve got electrical that can service all of these machines. You’ve got ventilation for the dryer so that the lint is getting out of there because lint will kill everything. Right.

So you’ve got all these things to sort of manage. And then you’ve got machine costs, but to kind of give you just like a ballpark of what it would cost, if you had like a 3,000 square foot space to put new machines in there, you’re probably looking at $750,000 plus build out costs from there. So you’re looking at that.

But, you know, just, just to put it out there for everybody, that can feel very overwhelming to try to figure out how to, figure out what machines to get. Cause you got a whole bunch of different sizes, how to actually lay them out, make sure they all get installed correctly, all of that stuff. But we actually have a service, you know, that will, will help you pick out, will help you find the location.

We’ll do all the demographics for you. We’ll help you submit letters of intent to the landlords to try to negotiate those leases. We will help you pick out a machine mix and a layout.

We’ll help you, we’ll introduce you to a contractor that will help with the build out and we’ll manage that build out for you. So it can be overwhelming, but if you work with people who’ve done it before, you know, like anything else, right?

[Erica]
It’s, it’s not nearly as bad as, as it would have been so nice for you to have somebody like you when you started. Yeah.

[Jordan Berry]
I’ve said, I’ve said many times, if me back then could have had a 15 minute conversation with me now, it would have saved me six figures easy and a whole lot of heartache and pain.

[Erica]
Oh, that’s so hard.

[Jordan Berry]
I know, I know. But that’s, that’s, yeah, you go through that stuff and that’s, it makes you, it turns you into who you are, right? Like I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but, but I’m glad I did.

[Erica]
Yeah. It’s nice. Yeah.

Looking back, you know, once you’ve made it through weeds, you can start to place a meaning behind it. But man, when you’re in it, trying to figure out how to get out of it, that’s, that’s, I mean, I don’t know, I could feel when you were talking about it, I was just thinking that sounds so isolating looking for help and nobody is there.

[Jordan Berry]
It was super isolated and it, it was isolating and I mean, I guess we’re going to jump into it because, you know, you’re, you’re pulling it out of me. But yeah, it was, it was, I said, even, even within, you know, between my wife and I, like my, my whole world, I was like, we’ve got to figure this thing out. We’re bleeding money left and right.

I’ve, so I was like all consumed with this and my wife was like overwhelmed. It was overwhelming. Like it was, I was overwhelmed too.

I just didn’t feel like I had a choice, but it was overwhelming. And so she couldn’t talk about it at all. And so, you know, it, it, it was like a source of conflict for us, not even conflict.

It was just like, I didn’t have anything to talk about, but the laundromat, she couldn’t talk about the laundromat. So we had this like period of time where we just were not communicating very well for a while. And that was rough.

[Erica]
That is rough, especially when you’re in the, probably a pinnacle point of time where you need the support of your partner, both of you. And how that’s hard when neither one can really have the space or energy to be able to get that.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. It was tough. But like I said, I mean, we, I feel like now, like at least from, from my side, she might say something different, but from my side of things, I’m like, man, if we, if we survived that, like we’re good.

Like I can’t get us into problems that we can’t get out of now, which is more likely than the other way, her getting us into problems, more likely than I’m gonna get us into problems.

[Mattias]
Hey, you were gonna be good at the condo in white.

[Jordan Berry]
I mean, I do reminder of that. This whole thing kind of is your fault.

[Erica]
Yeah. Is it at the point where you guys can laugh about that now? How do you guys talk about it?

Or do you at this point?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. Yeah. Now, I mean, listen, there, there’s still a few things that happened over there.

Cause, cause for me, and I don’t, I don’t want to like go too far into this cause this is not typical at all. But also it wasn’t just that we were losing money. The particular laundromat that they sold me, the previous owner had just let it go and like almost never went there.

And so literally it was, it had become gang turf. And so not only were we losing money, but I, I was literally in a gang fight, like a turf war with the gang.

[Erica]
Is that something you have to disclose to clients that they’re buying property? This is part of it. Turf?

[Mattias]
In Virginia?

[Jordan Berry]
Maybe not. I don’t know. I mean.

[Mattias]
In Virginia, no. That would be a crime and anything like that is a, on the purchaser to do due diligence on.

[Erica]
How in the world do you figure that out before you buy a property?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, I don’t know. And again, I don’t want to, you know, that was not a typical scenario. But you know, it was so, I mean, there’s all that to say, like there’s still a few things that my wife doesn’t know that happened over there.

But for the most part, yes, we can talk about it all.

[Erica]
Yeah, oh my gosh.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah.

[Erica]
I’m glad you got out of there. Yeah, yeah.

[Jordan Berry]
Well, and it was better, like after, you know, literally I fought, you know, some and, you know, cleaned it up and all that. It, it was better. Like it wasn’t like, and it wasn’t like, like I would bring my kids there sometimes and, you know, like during the day.

But like I’d bring my kids there. So it wasn’t like crazy, super dangerous. But there was that conflict going on and there was dangerous situations that happened early on there until things kind of cleaned up.

Wow. So, yeah.

[Erica]
That’s incredible. Well, thank you for sharing that. I know, and it sounds like that is not necessarily a memory you enjoyed going back to, but it sounds like a big part of your story though, because it ended up getting you to where you are now.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. Well, and it was just, I mean, it was, it was rough all around, right? Because we were losing money.

We were expecting to be making money. I was spending a ton of time there when I was expecting to spend very little time there. And I had two young kids and, you know, I’m like getting in fights.

And I’m like, dude, this is stupid because all it takes is one thing to happen. And that’s it, right? Like, but, but, you know, it’s like you go through things and get better and you learn and, you know, and then you come out the other side and keep going.

[Mattias]
Would there be, I picked up that you felt like things weren’t handled the best from the broker side. So at that time you were not an agent, I imagine.

[Jordan Berry]
No, I wasn’t an agent yet. And yeah, this is a laundromat specific broker here. So, and there’s, there’s some good ones, but there’s a lot of really bad ones here.

Not like in real estate. I mean, you know, real estate agents are, no, we’re all great.

[Mattias]
What I was getting at was, is there any, any lessons I think that could come from that or any insights to how people could operate? Because I think that sometimes people maybe sacrifice what past, the long-term deals for the short-term gains. And like, I would imagine you would use this agent again and you’ve now purchased multiple, you know, is there anything like that that you would?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, well, and it’s, it’s way worse than that for the, for the broker, because now, you know, a lot of people in this industry get their education about the industry through me and my platform. And a lot of my consulting clients who are in LA area, not only will I not recommend that broker, I will, cause they’re still around, but I will tell them like, this, this is the person who I had my first experience with. Right?

Like, so, I mean, I think they’ve lost out on a lot of business because of that. How they did that, right? So, you know, for me, you know, it’s all about the long-term perspective and sort of that abundance mindset, I guess is like, you know, if I, if I’m an agent or if I’m, if I’m this broker and I, you know, I would tell the client like, hey, this is a rough area.

Here’s kind of the situation because I’d want somebody to walk into that knowingly, especially if it’s going to be dangerous, right? I want them to walk into that knowingly, but also if they weren’t going to walk into it, if they, if that’s not a good fit for them, I just got to believe that we’ll find a good fit for them. And we’ll find a good fit for this rough laundromat too.

Right? There are people who don’t have any problems going in that.

[Mattias]
So it sounded like there was one agent involved. Is that correct?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Mattias]
Yeah. And I guess like, you know, again, I don’t know if the walls in California, but I think, I think in our residential contract, at least, you know, there’s a, there’s like a bunch of, it’s a seller, it’s a buyer to our state and it’s a bunch of disclosures that you go through that the buyer must perform the service. We can know representations about X, Y, and Z, and one of them is crime, sex offenders, that kind of thing.

So I think, you know, in that kind of scenario, one could be like, you know, and, you know, if you want to, you can look up these things, these websites. Yeah. Yeah.

China, even if you’re not allowed to directly say, you know, there’s, there’s a severe crime happening here. You could make sure that they are aware that it is their responsibility to look up that kind of thing.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, totally. And, and like I said, like, you know, it’s, it’s not fully on them because I just, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just, I had no idea and I relied.

And, you know, pretty common when it, when it comes to buying a business or, or laundromat is the, the brokers representing both sides. So I also recognize it’s a tough situation, tough situation to be in, right?

[Mattias]
Yeah. Is that full on? Is one party underrepresented or is that full on like?

[Jordan Berry]
No, dual agency. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

[Mattias]
Yeah. That’s interesting.

[Erica]
I just wanted to ask yet, I guess from the point you, and maybe even before, I don’t know, you had mentioned you were a pastor, a new pastor and as you transitioned into the laundromat business and make your some really dark times, I’m just kind of curious, what was it that did keep you grounded? Kept you going? It sounded like it was really tough.

What did you have around you which you used to keep you steady? Yeah.

[Jordan Berry]
So, you know, I mean, I, I still kind of went to church. So that was there, but I mean, honestly, really what kind of kept me going was my family, my wife, my kids, and just, you know, I was trying to do something for our family, right? Like I was trying to, you know, create some time to spend more time with the family and create, you know, an income so that we had things covered financially.

And, and when that didn’t happen, you know, a lot of the, the, the motivation behind continuing to try to figure it out was I, I wanted to perform well for my kids and for my wife and, and not, you know, in my own head, at least not look like a failure to my wife and my kids mostly, right? But also, also if I’m being, you know, super honest here, the other side of it was like, I also just didn’t know how to get out. And whether I was grounded or not, almost didn’t matter because I didn’t know how to get out of it.

Like we’re losing money and I, I didn’t even know how to like sell it or, or anything. So that, that also was part of it.

[Erica]
Just trying to make your way through it.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah.

[Erica]
There, there is a, we see this a lot in the people that we talk to on the guests on this podcast and maybe you see this too in yours, but it really feels like everybody we talked to, you included have this, I don’t know, this persistence, you know, like I, I would, I have this vision for myself and my family a lot of times. And even though it’s really hard, I’m going to keep going because even, even before you totally got out of that first laundromat, you took on another one and you’re like, you know, I’m going to figure this out. And, and there’s something to that.

There’s, there’s kind of a, like a fire inside of everybody we talked to that they’re, they’re not going to just be done. They’re going to keep pushing.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. And I mean, I think that that is honestly, I think that’s a huge part of any, like seeing any kind of success. Like I just don’t, unless you get lucky first time around, like, I just don’t think that you can be successful and sustain any kind of success in anything without just persevering.

What like walking, what is it like a, in one direction for a long time, I forget the quote, I’m butchering it, but it’s, you know, walk a long time in one direction. Right. Like that’s kind of, I think what it takes.

And it’s probably not that, you know, a coincidence that, that you’re seeing that in a lot of people you’ve had on the podcast.

[Mattias]
And Schwarzenegger talks about as a 10,000 reps, like anything you want to get good at or, you know, succeed in that you have to put in like a memo of 10,000 reps, you know, coming from that bodybuilding world.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. Me too, by the way.

[Mattias]
No, that’s, that, that, that was a really good book. And that’s an easy segue to ask you about, if you have any good books that you find fundamental mindset for business related to laundromats, real estate, is there anything that you would recommend people check out?

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. I mean, I could write off a whole bunch of books. I read a lot of business and personal development books and all that, but I guess, you know, if I was just going to pick one now, I read this one a while back now, but it still sort of just resonates with me with everything I’m doing.

But 10X is easier than 2X. I don’t know, have you guys read that one?

[Mattias]
It’s on my list.

[Erica]
We have a long reading list. It’s on it.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, bump it up. It’s good. It’s a, it’s a really good one.

You know, and it, it, it just kind of forced me to think bigger. And, you know, I, I also read, I think, I think Grant Cardone’s 10X rule. So I was kind of familiar with the concept of like, hey, thinking bigger and stuff.

But I, the way that 10X is easier than 2X kind of frames it out just clicked with me for some reason. And I just, you know, it opened my eyes to like, there’s a lot bigger world out there, right? So whether you’re a real estate agent and your goal is to, you know, gross commission income of a million dollars or whatever.

And, you know, one thing that I was realizing was like, you know, you could go sell a bunch of $150,000 houses, but to get to a million dollars, you’ve got to, you’ve got to go, you know what I mean? But if you’re, if you’re, if you’re thinking, hey, my goal is to get to $10 million, like I don’t know if you can do it in a year with $150,000 houses, you’ve got to think differently. And then you’ve got to do different things.

So you’re probably going after those $5, $10 million listings plus, right? At that point or something else, right? Like you’ve got to, you’ve got, you can’t do the same things to get those results.

And there’s, I guess the book is saying like, hey, if you’re trying to double it, like you were trying to go from 1 million to 2 million, your tendency is just going to be to try to muscle it, right? And do, okay, I did 150 houses this year. I’m going to do 300 and try to get to 2 million, right?

And just try to muscle it. But if you go to 10X, there’s just no way you can muscle it. You’ve got to shift and do something different.

So anyways, for me, it was like a big aha moment.

[Erica]
That’s so cool. It just occurred to me, bear with me, but that’s exactly how I approach weightlifting too. Just instead of hitting a one rep max and then, you know, working off of that often, like in our CrossFit classes, it’s like, you know, do 65, 70% of your one rep max.

And I was like, well, here’s where I want it to be. So this is what I’m going to go for then. And, you know, work your way up to as big as you want to go.

[Mattias]
Yeah. We’re doing 70% of your goal max. That’s awesome.

That one is definitely high on the list. And we are working on some delegation ourselves. So WhoNotHow, also by the same author, is another one that’s high on the list that I’ve started.

I think I have probably about seven to 10 books that I’ve started. I wish I could leave this podcast every time and dedicate like four to six hours just to get these books done because I’m always so motivated to read them.

[Erica]
But you’re also writing your own book.

[Mattias]
I just need more time. 10x my time. But no, that’s awesome.

[Jordan Berry]
Or do you need more time? Or do you need to spend your time on higher income producing activities to free up more of your time? Because also buy back your time, not to drop in another, but you dropped in another one.

So I’m going to drop in a buyback in time was another huge, you know, I don’t know if you read that one.

[Mattias]
I’m like halfway through that one as well.

[Jordan Berry]
That was another big perspective shift for me. Maybe combine those ones and then you’ll free up your time to read more books.

[Mattias]
That is the goal. That is definitely the goal. And I think like, you know, whatever you’re chasing, whatever you’re doing, I think, you know, whenever you can surround yourself with ideas or people that are, you know, way further ahead than you are, just you’re just going to be motivated.

You’re going to see things in a new way. And books are such an excellent, easy, accessible resource to do that. So a huge fan of reading and just need to work on the finishing.

[Jordan Berry]
Get some on audio while you’re out there lifting CrossFit.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, no, totally love audiobooks. And have you done the Kindle WhisperSync? That’s my favorite.

[Jordan Berry]
No, I haven’t. That’s cool.

[Mattias]
Yeah. If I can be listening to it for the majority of time, but then I can open the digital book and actually take a note or highlight or whatever. And then sometimes if I’m able to sit down and actually kind of want to read, I can kind of follow along while it’s reading to me, which I like.

So yeah, tell us some more about your coaching and what people, if they want to reach out there, if they’re interested in launching a business, how they could reach out to you and get help, the resources you have, your podcast, et cetera.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah. So the platform and the podcast and the socials and everything is Laundromat Resource. It’s just what it sounds like, a bunch of resources for anybody who owns laundromats or wants to own their first laundromat.

Lots of free stuff over there, lots of free tools and resources. We’ve got a podcast where, I don’t know, I think we’re getting close to 175 episodes, long form interviews with laundromat owners and other people in the industry. So lots of great stuff over there.

And then we’ve got a consulting team over there that you can book a call with if you got questions about just in general or specific deal stuff. But then also, we’ve got a program that’ll kind of help you get from wherever you’re starting, which is probably, if you’re listening to this, just probably, oh, I’m interested in buying a laundromat all the way through scaling up an empire, if that’s what you want to do. And we’ve got some, you know, we teach you how to do it options.

We’ve got some we do it with you options. We’ve got some we do it for you options over there for all that. But like I said, there’s also a ton of stuff over there for free that you can go download.

There’s a free course on how to buy your first laundromat. It’s three lessons, jam packed with a ton of really great information. And I know that for a fact, not pat myself on the back.

However, I’ve done a webinar almost every week for the past like three years. And so I’m gathering questions. I’m hearing from people what questions they have.

And so all that information is just packed in those three lessons. So super good foundation for you over there and a bunch of other free stuff laundromat resource.com.

[Mattias]
Awesome. That’s awesome. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much for doing this. First and foremost, I think that, you know, anybody that’s interested, I know that if I were looking to, if a laundromat comes our way, you would have no idea what to do. So having that resource sounds amazing.

And thank you so much for being on the show.

[Jordan Berry]
Yeah, no, thank you for having me on the show. And listen, I as a, you know, fellow real estate agent over here on the on the on the best coast, I am like, I’m pretty passionate about helping real estate agents kind of build their wealth. I think too many of us are just, you know, representing other people buying and selling real estate or businesses or whatever.

And we’re not doing enough of it ourselves to build our long term wealth. And so talk about 10x is easier than 2x, you know, maybe maybe set a goal to buy some real estate or a business or something yourself and build your own wealth because that’s that’s what’s going to give us the time that we want to read more books or to, you know, lift heavier or whatever it is that we’re trying to do. So build some wealth.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s perfect. I couldn’t have said it any better. Thank you so much.

[Jordan Berry]
Thank you guys.

[Erica]
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.

[Mattias]
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[Erica]
Visit REIAgent.com for more content.

[Mattias]
Until next time, keep building the life you want.

[Erica]
All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.