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You are here: Home / I am a Reluctant Landlord / Landlords: Should You Include a Washer and Dryer in Your Rental?

Landlords: Should You Include a Washer and Dryer in Your Rental?

May 20, 2015 by Elizabeth Bennett Colegrove 5 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links.

What do I do with my Washer/Dryer?

I see this question ALL the time in the many forums.  In the beginning I was buying a washer and dryer for my tenant. This was a large out of pocket cost of $1200+. Then I tried to reduce the costs by getting a used washer/dryer. While this sometimes worked out, there were other times it did not! So now I was replacing them in addition to the service calls and cost! Which was not cheap! So offering washer and dryers became very expensive.

Rental

So I tried an experiment. I stopped offering washer/dryers.

Side Note, as always,  it REALLY depends on your market and tenants. Some markets demand washers/dryers; many many others are perfectly fine with just hookups as it is standard for them to bring there own.

I no longer offered washer/dryers. Guess what? I did not have a single bit of trouble renting out our place! No one turned down our house, no one “demanded” a washer/dryer. So it had no affect but saved a large line item on my account.

So for me:

At the end it came down to value versus cost. As discussed in are you being eaten alive by unexpected costs, extra costs add up. The key is to offer a great product that your market expects without losing on unproductive “extras”. In my experience a stove, dishwasher and in SOME places a refrigerator is expected and required. Everything  else is just that- an “extra”. So the question is for the extra money you put in you want to make more money. As discussed previously there are ceilings. The market will only bear so much, therefore it is important to weigh what offers more money and what doesn’t.

It also reduced my stress as the number of service calls were reduced. The washer/dryer made up a predominate number of my issues. They broke and got lint stuck in them. While I now have the deductible which “magically” has reduced many of these issues they still exist.

Do you offer washer/dryer? What has been your experience?

15

Filed Under: I am a Reluctant Landlord, I am a Small Time Landlord, Self Management

Comments

  1. Drew says

    May 21, 2015 at 10:44 am

    It can be easily overlooked that you will need to pay maintenance costs for washers and dryers in the units whenever something is wrong and it can end up being a problem for you in the long run. Great post, thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  2. Christian Petersen says

    June 16, 2020 at 12:26 pm

    I have found it cheaper to buy a new replacement washer or dryer than trying to save by buying a used one, or trying to keep up with frequent repairs on older units (same business model as car rental companies).

    Reply
  3. Ben James says

    January 20, 2021 at 6:23 am

    This feels like grifting. If you don’t want to be a responsible landlord then sign up for services with an agency that will take care of that aspect for you. There is a big difference between buying properties and flipping them and being someone who leases properties to a paying customer. And a washer and dryer deductible? You are a clown. That’s just petty. Wanna be a flipper? Go flip. But if you rent to people then you have a responsibility to have working washers and dryers on the unit.

    Reply
  4. Ben says

    January 20, 2021 at 6:26 am

    This feels like grifting. If you don’t want to be a responsible landlord then sign up for services with an agency that will take care of that aspect for you. There is a big difference between buying properties and flipping them and being someone who leases properties to a paying customer. And a washer and dryer deductible? You are a clown. That’s just petty. Wanna be a flipper? Go flip. But if you rent to people then you have a responsibility to have working washers and dryers on the unit.

    Reply
  5. CheetahOBX says

    March 1, 2021 at 9:24 am

    I typically do NOT provide washer/dryer OR a refrigerator(s)……..in the event that I do…..I state…in the lease….that in the event that anything does wrong….it is the sole responsibility of the lessee…… problem solved….for the most part….

    Reason being….I can NOT control how the lessee takes care of these appliances……

    Reply

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