Picture one of your apartments ending up as the dream home of a couple endlessly looking to rent a flawless upscale apartment. The grass is freshly trimmed and well maintained, and the landscaping is flourishing. As soon as your prospective tenants pull into the property, the architectural design of your location fills them with a feeling of "coming home." The unit that you have to show them has an amazing layout, comes equipped with great appliances and lighting in the kitchen, and features high-speed Internet capability. Everything is extravagant, and they are about to sign the papers! But they first wish to see the laundry facility. It is now your duty to, reluctantly, escort them to the laundry area where they are suddenly plunged decades into the past.

It's Saturday morning, and the room is packed full of people doing their laundry. Everyone's going completely insane fighting over who is next in line for the dryer. Some guy over there is cursing at the machine that just ate four of his quarters. And, to top it all off, there's not a single working washing machine available. There goes every possibility of the couple signing the lease! After viewing the laundry room, the couple quickly leaves and you never see them again. It is time for a change!

Now picture the same scene again, only this time you show the laundry room and its associated features proudly instead of reluctantly. The Clothing Care Center uses coinless equipment that is state of the art. Machines are accessed with a ?smart card? system instead of coins. When residents enter their AccessCard into a machine, it pays for the load and they don't have to scrounge around for quarters. The AccessCard's value can be added at any time using a credit or debit card. The residents can also get prepaid AccessCards. The benefits of such a system are tremendous for both the business and the residents. There is no cash available to thieves, so the laundry area remains safe.

There are high-tech features in other areas too, not just with the coinless machines. Residents can check on the status of washers and dryers using computers, cell phones, or PDA devices through Laundry-Alert, which is an internet-based laundry monitoring system. The system even informs the residents when their laundry is ready to be picked up. Your new tenants will be thrilled with the laundry services your complex offers them; what a huge selling point to get that lease signed.

The cash flow in your business can easily be tracked with recent technology. Accountability ensures the accuracy of the commission checks and ensures that all revenue is accounted for.

Lots of places offer laundry services, so you may need to do a serious comparison. Find a service company that has great customer service, along with outstanding technology, wonderful maintenance and repair, and detailed revenue reports. And then make sure that the laundry room never forces you to lose potential tenants ever again!