In multifamily, we spend a lot of time talking about the amenities residents want. But some of the most overlooked opportunities aren’t about luxury at all. They’re about necessity .
Printing and coffee are two perfect examples. Residents need both, every single day, whether or not a property provides them. The only question is how that need gets met, and the answer has real consequences for residents’ time, their wallets, and the planet.
Why shared amenities make more sense
At some point, every resident will need to print a document, a lease, a boarding pass, a school form, or a contract. When a property doesn’t offer a solution, residents are left with two unsatisfying options.
They can drive to a print retailer and burn time, gas, and patience on a task that should take minutes.
Or, they can buy a personal printer, which solves the immediate problem but creates several new ones.
That printer, along with its paper and ink cartridges, doesn’t get used every day. It sits. Ink dries out. Paper yellows. And eventually, that device, circuit boards, plastic housing, toner cartridges and all, ends up in a landfill, often well before it’s actually worn out. In the meantime, it’s plugged into the wall drawing standby power around the clock, a small but real and entirely unnecessary drain on energy resources.
Shared resources benefit everyone
A shared resource model, like PrintWithMe’s resident printing solution , solves all of these problems.
Instead of every household owning a redundant device that’s idle 99% of the time, residents access a shared printer on site, on demand. There’s no special trip required, no device to purchase, and no orphaned hardware destined for disposal. One well-used, well-maintained shared printer replaces dozens of individually owned ones, which means less manufacturing, less electronic waste, and less wasted standby electricity across the community.
The same logic applies to coffee, a need that’s arguably even more universal.
Residents who want their coffee will get it one way or another. Some will spend the time and money going out to a retailer every morning, which adds up quickly in both dollars and time.
Others will buy a home coffee maker, which introduces its own quiet inefficiencies: coffee grounds and pods that go stale before they’re used, water reservoirs that sit unused for days, and a machine that, like the personal printer, often stays plugged in and drawing power even when no one’s brewing.
SipWithMe brings the same shared resource thinking to this everyday need. A community-grade brewer on site means residents get fresh coffee without the morning commute to a coffee shop, without buying and maintaining their own machine, without the accumulation of coffee beans, ground, and pods, and without wasted electricity that comes with owning a personal appliance that’s only used five minutes a day.
The case for shared amenities
What ties printing and coffee together isn’t just that they’re both daily needs, it’s that both reveal a broader truth about how we equip multifamily communities.
When every household solves a shared, low-frequency need with an individually owned device, we multiply waste, redundancy, and energy consumption across hundreds of units.
When that same need is met through a shared, well-maintained, professionally serviced resource, residents get a better experience with less effort, owners reduce clutter and turnover-related waste, and communities collectively shrink their environmental footprint.
For multifamily owners and operators evaluating their amenity strategy, the lesson is straightforward. The things residents need most aren’t always the things that make for exciting marketing copy, but they’re exactly where shared infrastructure delivers the clearest wins across the board: saving time, money, and the planet we’re all sharing.
As resident expectations continue to evolve, the opportunity isn't simply to add more amenities. It's to rethink how essential services are delivered. The communities that embrace shared resources won't just reduce waste; they'll create a better resident experience while making their amenity strategy more practical, efficient, and sustainable.
