Should you profit from guest parking passes?
A cheap way to make a profit from the parking lot
When I got my first car, I cried tears of joy. It had occasional engine rumbling, a miniscule dent in one door, and the outside was painted maroon although the car was clearly blue before from looking at the inside. Still though, I was ecstatic to have it. It was a gift from my godfather, who builds cars, and held up for several years with me going back and forth from Illinois to Missouri for undergrad.
But a used car can become exhausting when it comes to upkeep, so I eventually sold it. Even though I got a little cash out of the deal, my bigger issue was a parking spot was included in my lease. So now I was paying for a parking spot rental and had no car to put there — and the property managers weren’t budging on the rate. Although I didn’t have ownership of the parking spot or my apartment, if I were a condo owner, this may have worked to my advantage.
Recommended Read: “The one piece of advice car salesmen often miss ~ Whether new money or old money, don’t treat people like they have no money”
For a variety of reasons, people give up on their cars — car accidents, high upkeep rates, more interest in ride-sharing, being environmentally friendly and preferring bicycles, health conditions disabling you from driving or just flat-out disinterest in driving anymore.
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And if your mortgage includes parking lot property, the last thing you want to do is be paying for an empty spot. So one of the easiest ways to resolve this as a condo owner is to let the condo board know that you’re interested in renting out your spot. (More often than not, attentive condo boards already know who badly needs a second parking spot for a second car or interested neighbors.)
And if you live in a neighborhood like the North Side of Chicago, which notoriously has a problem with parking and usually ends up requiring you to block two to three blocks away, there will always be someone who is interested in paying for your parking lot property percentage. But before you rent your parking spot out, there are a few things you should keep in mind.