In a perfect world, your car would last a lifetime until you get good and ready to sell or trade it for the next car. In the real world, life happens. After buying my car fresh off the dealership lot and keeping it for 15 years, it finally started to fall apart all at once. Financially, it made no sense to hold onto a car that decided to dump me long before I was ready to end the relationship. But now I had this empty parking spot and no immediate interest in replacing my 15-year steel friend with another. For condo unit owners who already have parking lot real estate included in their assessments, having an empty spot is like watching money fly away.
Even after posting signs on the doors of neighboring buildings, I decided to sign up for online parking rental sites. After testing Spacer, SpotHero and Craigslist Parking, this is how the experience went for me.
Recommended Read: “Should you profit from guest parking passes? ~ A cheap way to make a profit from the parking lot”
Post signs around the neighborhood first
There are pros and cons of spending money on ink, paper and tape to post signs around the neighborhood. The perk of it is you’ll be getting eyes immediately on a potential parking agreement. Considering the apartment building next to my condo had a few tenants who were constantly parking in our private parking lot, this seemed like a perfect way to resolve it all. The downside is the person who sneaks and parks in your spot may still be uninterested in paying for the spot. Additionally, now this crew knows there’s an empty spot on a semi-permanent basis and may try to park there more often until the space is filled.
SpotHero pros and cons
For PayPal users who already have a PayPal Business account, SpotHero’s payment option makes sense. Before the site will allow users to apply to post their parking space, they must offer payment options—by bank account or PayPal Business. While I still don’t understand why a personal PayPal account won’t suffice and users will have to wait until the two ghost deposits come in to verify a PayPal Business account, there are a zillion other reasons to use PayPal Business.
I choose not to because I don’t want to pay the credit card fees, especially when Zelle (and other platforms) are free. SpotHero doesn’t have a secure option to link and unlink bank account info as an alternative though. You must type your financial info directly on the site, along with the last four digits of your Social Security number. I was uncomfortable with that idea and did not proceed.
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While parking garages and other business venues are their largest client base, individual parking spot owners can apply for a spot. However, the FAQs are vague about the service fee for independent owners. Drivers can usually book spots for three-hour time slots all the way up to a monthly rate. But for owners who would prefer an annual contract instead of a monthly agreement, this can get complicated with cancellations and leave owners scrambling to find someone else to reserve the same spot.
Craigslist parking pros and cons
While I’m a longtime Craigslist poster for more than 10 years, there’s a boost in vindictiveness that I didn’t notice until this summer. Craigslist users are flagging anyone competing with them for sales and even flagging free items out of spite. After an exhaustive time giving away pet supplies, I wasn’t even surprised when my Craigslist parking post was flagged and removed in 24 hours—all while similar posters in the same neighborhood kept their posts in place. If you have the patience for dealing with petty flaggers, this is a wildly popular site to post on. While there is a $5 charge to sell a car, listing for parking rentals (and storage) is free of charge. Users can agree on whatever payment method they like.
Recommended Read: “Revenge flaggers on Craigslist: Why is your life so empty? ~ Why Craigslist needs to take notes from Freecycle: Get humans to confirm legitimate flagging”
Spacer pros and cons
I was pleasantly surprised to find out how easy it is to post my parking lot details, link my financial account info (securely) and share the annual agreement details on Spacer. I was even more shocked to sell my car on Friday and find a client on Sunday. I hadn’t even gotten the new parking sticker to replace my own, and I had to scramble around to get my condo board to release a temporary parking sticker. From an SEO perspective, Spacer seems to be more popular than SpotHero. I didn’t know just how popular the site was until it only took me two days to find a customer!
While the sign-up process is much more seamless, there are downsides for Spacer. There is no way to send email addresses or any other contact info, primarily so users don’t try to go around the site to gain customers. By doing this, Spacer loses out on its 20% charge. Like SpotHero, this site also prefers to charge by the month instead of the year. And for users who prefer annual contracts, this can be frustrating. Even Customer Service isn’t able to help with attaching a contract. (Parking lot owners can create one for free at eForms.) While customers can agree to an annual rate, there’s nothing on the site that allows them to sign it to confirm this rate and they can cancel at any time.
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”
Although I didn’t use Spacer because I preferred an annual deal, I highly recommend them for their attentiveness. I got a call, an email and a text all at the same time when someone booked my spot. Customer Service was patient in understanding my dilemma for an annual contract, and I was honest about declining the offer to work with someone on a yearly basis—who did sign my contract the same day.
However, for parking lot owners who have more control over their parking spots, and don’t have to deal with temporary stickers versus permanent stickers or a condo board policing all the cars in the lot, Spacer is by far the best choice. I’m not sure how long it would’ve taken to find customers the old-fashioned way with neighborhood signs. Mobile apps and online parking lot sites have made the process much easier than the early 2000s when I first bought my car.
In fact, when I was shopping around to buy a home, I turned down two condos because they didn’t have parking. If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve used Spacer (founded in 2015) or SpotHero (founded in 2011) until I was able to secure a closer parking spot. As a parking lot owner though, Spacer wins hands down—especially if/when they get an annual contract option.
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