‘Where do guests park when visiting an apartment building?’.
It is a simple question, but one that causes so many problems for property managers and landlords.
That is because tenants expect to have somewhere for their visitors to leave their vehicles.
It’s a valid issue too. When your residence has unused spaces in a lot, naturally you expect that your guest will be able to use those spaces.
However, this simply isn’t always the case as these spaces may be reserved for others.
What is guest parking?
Guest parking (visitor parking) refers to those parking stalls within the parking which are used for the parking of vehicles owned by visitors to the apartment building.
Problems with offsite guest parking
Of course, as a property manager, you might think that visitor parking quite simply isn’t your problem. And of course, if you don’t allow guests on your lot, in a way, you do solve one problem.
However, the problem is that you create several bigger headaches.
1. Disgruntled tenants
Let’s face facts; if your tenant’s guests can’t get parking in the locality, then some of them won’t actually visit.
And your tenants will get sick of living in a place where people don’t want to travel to because of the parking situation.
Disgruntled tenants, who have the means, will look to move on to better living quarters. And a high tenant turnover can lead directly to a tenant retention issue, where you are actually missing out on rent due to apartments laying idle.
2. Safety problems
Once again, if guests are forced to park offsite, there are problems with their safety. Not all offsite parking is well-lit or has the right security measures in place.
Thus, there is no control over the safety of guests who are visiting your building if they can’t use your lot.
4. An inefficient lot
Plainly, this also leaves a resource of yours untapped. Why have guests and visitors not using your lot when it is available?
Of course, it might seem like this isn’t the case, but count the unused reserved spaces on any given day and think about how they can be reassigned for better use.
5. Lost revenue
When you encourage visitors to your property to park offsite, you are ignoring the potential revenue you can bring in from charging them for parking spaces.
Many visitors (and the tenants they are visiting) are happy to have convenient parking, even if they have to pay a fee to use it.
When your policy is to push these vehicles offsite, you are missing out on this income.
Manually managing guest parking in apartments
If you are a property manager, you already know the headaches that come along with manually managing guest parking in an apartment building.
Here’s a quick overview:
Time consuming
As obvious as this sounds, it’s still worth stating that manually managing guest parking is time-consuming. And as a property manager, it is likely your time is already assigned to a hundred other jobs.
Not only that, but who wants to be spending all of their working day monitoring the goings on of their car lot?
Unfortunately, when you manage guest parking manually, this is quite simply something you have to do. Because if you don’t, your lot can be full of visitors’ cars and there will not be room for residents’ vehicles.
If you don’t manage it, there is also the risk that unassigned vehicles will park in your lot to use free parking.
Not efficient at all
Another issue with the manual management of visitors in apartment blocks is that it isn’t efficient at all.
The lot might be fully reserved, with those wanting to use it left to find alternative offsite spaces. That is despite the reserved spaces not being used, as their owners aren’t in need of parking.
Whereas when technology is used, particularly a booking and reservation system, only those who need the spaces have them assigned to their name.
Not ready for the future
When your guest parking is controlled manually, it makes sense that it’s not going to easily adapt to technological changes.
Believe it or not, but smart buildings don’t integrate too well with simple pen and paper.
Automating the management of guest parking in apartments
It’s just one of those paradoxes in life; property managers and landlords realize that they aren’t offering the best parking experience when managing their lots manually.
However, they are still slow to adapt to the technology that can improve various elements of apartment parking.
Booking made easier
When you’re using technology to manage where guests park when visiting an apartment building, you’ll notice that occupancy is no longer an issue. Those who need the lot use it and those that don’t, don’t have reserved spaces.
It makes for a better experience for everyone involved. Security is also dramatically improved, as you have a digital record of every vehicle that is using the facility.
Money made
The opportunity to make money from vacant spaces is massive. Automating your system, visitors can pay a small fee to use your facilities.
You can even rent them to others who have businesses in the area.
Happier tenants
When processes are streamlined, tenants know they are living in a building that is doing things the right way.
With guests able to visit without any parking issues, the people who live in the building will be much happier.
And happier tenants are tenants that are not looking for alternative living quarters.
More than just a solution for guest parking
Wayleadr’s solutions go much further than just managing how guests park.
Find a full range of options by talking to one of our staff members, who will be able to show you bespoke solutions for all your parking lot problems.
