Parking spaces can be difficult to find, especially in larger towns and cities, so renting a parking space could be the solution.
What’s even more frustrating is that a lot of houses have empty driveways during the day as the owner has driven their car to work – you could be renting a parking space from them!
Which is where the web comes into its own – matching up empty parking spaces with people looking towards renting a parking space on a regular basis.
More about renting a parking space
I should have realized the potential for this ages ago – friends often ask to park on my driveway while they shop or visit the hospital or do other things around town – but like most blindlingly obvious things I missed this completely.
However, the penny finally dropped and I recently decided to let out a vacant parking space.
I found two services, one of which specializes in UK parking spaces and the other which covers parking spaces worldwide.
Both allow you to put up an parking space advert free of charge. And both will charge the owner of the space am ongoing “finders fee” of 15%. A bit like property letting agents, except the fee is higher.
It’s easy to set up an advert with both companies.
The UK based company, Parklet, allows you to put an advert up for either a daily space or a longer term (monthly) rental. You can select from two different types of monthly rental – weekdays or whole months.
The advert is then sent off for approval and for Parklet to suggest a recommended rent. Until that happens, your advert doesn’t show up.
Parklet also act as middlemen – issuing a parking permit, checking that the car wanting to park is insured and handling payments.
If you’ve got a lot of parking spaces to look after , this service is well worth having as it takes care of most of the boring administration.
The other company, ParkAtMyHouse, is a lot less “control freak” in nature. You set your own price and the advert goes live immediately. There’s also much more flexibility on pricing – you can price your space by the hour, day, week, month, year or “event”.
This last option would be useful if your area fills up when special events happen. Maybe there’s a local exhibition centre, a golf tournament or (like my home town) horse racing.
Locally someone is renting out two spaces by the day on their drive if there’s a horse racing meeting on, someone else is renting out their drive by the hour when there’s a football match playing. This flexibility is excellent.
Of course, since you only pay if your available space is let, it’s worth registering with both sites and seeing who attracts the business for you.
If you’re searching for a parking space, I think you’ll prefer ParkAtMyHouse. You enter your location and the available spaces are clearly marked on a map, with a letter to easily identify each available space.
On both sites, it’s then a simple matter of tapping in your contact details and letting the site send them on to the parking space owner.
Renting out a spare parking space most likely won’t make your fortune but it will contribute to the cost of your motoring.
My preference as a user is definitely the ParkAtMyHouse site. It’s more flexible and the web site navigation is better.