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As we are all looking for income from properties, I was wondering about everyone’s willingness and ability to rent out a single garage space for additional income?
I am working with a startup in Austin Texas that wants to put a single vehicle-sized automated package warehouse (like for UPS packages) into garages and pay the landlords for the space. Their robotic carts would be coming and going to take packages to neighbors. They would have control of the garage door, which would operate frequently… security cameras are on the front of the warehouse and they offer insurance against any theft. Would you participate? How much per month is your garage space worth?
Hi Helsi, thanks for the response! I assume you also live at the place you rent out (maybe just doing a room?) I think that makes sense for a personal residence to be concerned about coming/going whereas a full-time short-term rental may be less concerned as long as the hours don’t include night (which they wouldn’t)! As far as change of use, that depends highly on the locality as to the requirement and is a separate risk vector from the one explored here. Thanks!
Interesting thought. Hospitality vs. Real Estate. Isn’t it a bit of both in the end. For some people, the extra income from the garage (as long as it doesn’t affect the hospitality experience) would be welcome, no? Thank you for this perspective!
As others have said, this won’t work with Airbnb properties. Guests aren’t going to want vehicles coming and going, not even during the day and not even if the host doesn’t live there. There may be some hosts who would sign up because they haven’t thought it through but after a few bad reviews or requests for refunds/cancellations they would figure it out.
Now let’s say for instance I don’t do Airbnb but I’d like to monetize unused garage space, maybe. Except I’m pretty sure that you would need permits, etc for running a business in a residential neighborhood. Or if you didn’t you would soon get complaints. Carts coming and going multiple times a day? Who wants to live on that street?
But let’s say all concerns are adequately addressed. To answer this question I’d need $1000 a month to put up with this and to park my personal vehicle in the sun, snow, ice, hail, and dirt year round.
Thank you for the answers! I don’t think you’ve thought through the one comment about “who wants to live on that street”. The fact is WE ALL live on a much worse street, one with 8,000 lb. vehicles plastered with UPS or FEDEX coming and going all day and burning fossil fuels to get to every single persons door. The problem is widely considered unsustainable as ecommerce continues to grow. So you will have something coming and going (speaking in terms of the neighborhood) the question is do you prefer 8,000 lb vehicles or 200 lb small electric carts? The price per month guesstimate is super helpful
Maybe we should start charging all these “start ups”, “entrepreneurial topics” and general research enquiries that want some of our time, with the ultimate purpose being for the poster to try and separate us from some of our hard earned.
One my street traffic is pretty quiet. The UPS truck goes down the street once, almost every day. It often stops at my house, lol. Post office every day as I have to the door mail delivery. FedEx, not as often. I’d rather have two 8,000 lb vehicles a day than electric carts “frequently.” Unless frequently turns out to be twice a day, once rolling out in the morning and once when it returns at the end of it’s work day. Also the packages have to get from the massive warehouse to my garage. So the large delivery truck is still going to be on my street in addition to the carts, right?
Yes, the truck would still come to the neighborhood to drop packages at the home that contains the warehouse, and then promptly leave. Much like apartment places with a mail room. The amount of traffic you see would be highly correlated to the number of shipments coming to your neighborhood. So if you see only two trips a day now, the electric carts would likely be the same. However, their carrying capacity is lower than the large truck. So if you live in a larger neighborhood, it is certainly true they may have to make two+ trips across the same route whereas the 8,000 lb. gorilla could have done it with a single pass. Google “deaths from UPS trucks” and you may change your mind though about which you prefer I work from home on a cul-de-sac and see roughly 6-8 delivery vehicles every week day (and they’re often coming for me too)! Thanks again, your back-and-forth enlightens me.
Instead I googled deaths in golf carts and found this: “injuries from being hit by or falling off of golf carts surged 132 percent from 1990 to 2006. Nearly 150,000 people, ranging in age from two months to 96 years, were hurt in golf cart accidents during that time.”
It’s old info but I’m sure the principle is the same: more carts on the streets are going to result in more injuries, accidents and even deaths.
And honestly, it doesn’t matter what I prefer since I’m only one person.
Your primary obstacle is going to be getting permission to do this legally in neighborhoods where people live. Airbnb is already stirring the cauldron. I board dogs in my home and have networked with others that do the same and neighbors in places complain not only about dogs in yards and homes but also about traffic coming and going. I bet no HOAs are going to vote to allow this.
Ha, I’ve been doing that for 30 years now. If you’d like my address so you can send my consulting fees, message me.
@danewitbeck - I think that you’ve had enough response here to give you a sample of what most of the hosts at this forum think. I don’t blame you in the least for trying to justify your idea but it seems that here isn’t the right place to do it.
Your idea might be horrible or ir might be wonderful - but I doubt that here is the place to advertise it or to find plenty of people who are interested.
You see, you started with the wrong idea about hosts here when you said "we are all looking for income from properties, “Hospitality vs. Real Estate. Isn’t it a bit of both in the end” and similar remarks. You seem to have the idea that Airbnb hosts are people who just want to make money from their homes. I can only speak for myself and many others here but that isn’t our motivation. Many of us work in the hospitality industry because it’s our chosen profession. And I imagine that many of us could make more money, if that was our primary goal, in other industries.
Good luck with your idea and good luck in finding a suitable way to promote it.
In my personal home, I have a 3-car garage. One bay is used for storage. The other two house vehicles. If i could clear out the storage bay, I would also lose the parking space on the driveway in front of it. I might be willing to rent it if I understood how much traffic, but I’m thinking it’s unlikely.
My Airbnb listing has a 2-car garage which is not used by guests. I store a vehicle in one bay and the other is empty. I would not want guests to be subject to the door opening/closing all the time or the traffic, and I would not want to lose the parking space in front of the garage.
My HOA doesn’t allow businesses where vehicles are coming/going frequently, so that eliminates my homes anyway.
Maybe I’m not imagining a large enough scale, but it sure seems like it would be easier to use the infrastructure already available: rent nearby retail space for the distribution point. Using existing technology that is not size-constrained to load/unload delivery vehicles. Use autonomous vehicles (minivan size or smaller) to deliver from the distribution point to homes with some small robot to deliver from the vehicle to the door.
Don’t you think that carriers (not just UPS) will at least have semi-autonomous capabilities that virtually eliminate such deaths well before the “vehicle-sized automated package warehouse” concept could get off the ground.
I think whether you offer a listing on your property or remotely you would be concerned about coming and going all day of delivery vehicles as they would disturb guests @danewitbeck
I really wish you and other moderators would just kill all these folks that keep coming to this forum to sell us something or to look for research subjects. That’s not what this group is for, and folks that do that should be cut off after the first post.
