Traditionally January is the busiest time of the year for Self Storage.  Many people tend to spend time over Christmas tidying, sorting and preparing for the year ahead – so if YOU have a spare room, garage, shed, parking spot, office, hall, backyard, or even a paddock or barn that you are not using – it may be of use to someone else – and NOW is a perfect opportunity to turn it into some extra ongoing income.

As a special Christmas/New Year offer to SpaceOut members and visitors, we are giving you the chance to try out SpaceOut for free.  So if you’ve wondered whether renting out some of your unused space might be a good way to earn some extra cash, but didn’t want to commit to an upfront listing fee, now is your opportunity to try it out for absolutely nothing.

Limited Time Only

For a limited time (until the end of January 2012) you can create your Space for Rent Listing and get the first two months for FREE.

You will need to sign up for future payments, but can cancel any time you wish, so you could advertise and rent out your space within the first two months and pay nothing at all to get an ongoing residual income.

“Parking in Brisbane has become more than a headache, with some motorists slugged over $20 an hour for parking in the city”

As part of a nationwide investigation it has become clear that Brisbane parking rates are amongst the worst in Australia.  Brisbane drivers wishing to park in the city pay on average $45 a day (that’s over $200 a week).  Brisbane parking station fees are on a par with Melbourne (also $45 a day), and are more expensive than other Capital cities, except for Sydney where you can expect to pay up to $72 a day for parking.  Darwin, is the cheapest capital city to park, with fees as low as $2.40 per day at some inner city carparks.

The table below provides an overview of the parking fees for some of Brisbane’s largest commercial carparks (as of Sep 2010) :

Another big “money grab”  used by some of the commercial carpark operators is the policy of applying an extra fee if a motorist loses their ticket. In Brisbane you should expect to pay up to $66 for to park your car for the day if you can’t find your parking ticket.

Jim Kershaw a spokesman from the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ)  suggested that because of the high parking costs, many people parked outside the CBD and caught public transport, and said :

“In a perfect world there would be cheap parking for everyone”

SpaceOut – offers a cheap and convenient solution to motorists looking for alternatives to the high cost parking offered by commercial operators in city CBDs.  People can often find a much cheaper parking option by renting an unused private parking space or garage.  People living or working in (or near) the CBD, who have a parking space but no car, can also make a bit of extra cash by renting out their space .

Spaceout has always been outstanding value (we think that it still is),  and  we have always wanted our service to be used by (and useful to) as many people as possible throughout Australia, so introducing a small fee is not a decision we have taken lightly.    But  after much debate and consideration we are confident that introducing a fee is the best way to ensure that SpaceOut and the unique service that we provide, continues to grow and improve in the future.

Why A Listing Fee?

Here are some of the reasons why we have decided to introduce a fee for creating a new Space for Rent listing :

• Is it Really Free ? - this was by far the question that we got asked most often.  People were surprised that we were offering Spaceout as a free service in the first place, and even after we explained that it really was free, many were still suspicious and wondered what the catch was (there wasn’t one!!).  By introducing a fee, we recognise that some people may no longer list with us, but our market research suggest that even as a paid service SpaceOut offers great value (the possibility of earning $200 or more a month, easily outweighs the listing costs), and that in fact, many people are likely to be more comfortable paying a fee.
• Improving the Listing Standard – we’ve noticed that the listings some members create are very basic – often containing very little (or no) additional information about the space itself. This makes it harder for people to decide whether or not the space may be suit their needs.  Because the listing was free, some members seemed to feel that they shouldn’t bother about putting much effort into their listing (probably not realising that more detailed listings tend to get rented out faster). We believe that the small fee will encourage people to spend a little more time preparing their listings – making them more detailed and informative – which is better for everyone.
• Keeping it Fresh – Free listings provide no  real incentive for the owner to flag their space as leased once they have rented it out.  Some people members just let their listing expire at the end of three months – even though they have leased out the space.  This meant that they would get extra “contact requests” – which were sometimes ignored, and sometimes when people enquired about a space they were told that it was no longer available.  The monthly subscription provides an incentive for space owners to be a bit more proactive about managing their listing – which leads to a better experience for people looking for space, as they are less likely to find a space which is no longer actually available.
• Ongoing development – creating and running an online service like SpaceOut is not a cheap exercise.  We get suggestions and requests from members for improvements to the service (thanks very much for those), and have lots of plans or how we can improve and expand the functionality of the site.  Generating some sort of income from the site means that we will have more funds that we can put towards improvements – and will be able to offer additional functionality and features faster (and better) than we would have been able to otherwise.

How is the fee applied?

Once we had agreed that a  fee was necessary, we needed to look at the best way to apply this.  We considered quite a few different approaches, including

• a one off  fee, to allow listing  until the space had been rented (e.g. $50 for the life of the listing),
• a commission (a percentage of the space rental rate) once the space had been successfully leased (e.g. 20% of the monthly rental rate),
• a set price for a set listing period (e.g. $30 for 3 months),
• a sliding fee based on the advertised monthly space rental,

… but decided that a simple fixed price monthly subscription was the most reasonable and best value approach.

Monthly Subscription via Paypal

A monthly subscription allows us to charge a relatively small fee, and means that owners only need to pay for their listing until they rent out their space – they don’t have to pay for a big chunk of time that they may not even need.

We have decided to use Paypal (probably the world’s most popular payment system),  to manage the subscription process as this allows our members to have complete control of their own subscription and lets them review and update (or cancel) their subscription whenever they wish.  This means that members will need to register with Paypal (if they don’t already have an account), but provides them with greater flexibility in payment methods, and guarantees safe and secure payments.

When a new listing is created, as the final part of the listing process, owners will be directed to Paypal to confirm the subscription.  An initial payment will be made, and the listing will be activated, then, each month (on the anniversary of the original listing start date) another payment will automatically be applied, and the listing will automatically be extended for another month.

The subscription can be cancelled at any time (via the members Paypal account) – for example once the space has been leased out, or if it is decided that the listing is no longer required.  Once a subscription has been cancelled, the listing will remain active until the end of the current month’s listing period ( the status can still be set to Leased or Do Not Display to stop it showing up on SpaceOut).

Members will receive email notification when the subscription (and listing) is created, and monthly notification each time a payment is made.

You can find out more about the current space listing fees, or read more details about how the  payment process works.  We would also love to get your feedback on SpaceOut subscription, so if you’ve got anything you’d like us to know, please feel free to contact us.

The recently released Melbourne City Council budget has announced plans to extend the period of paid meter parking in the Melbourne CBD.  The council expects to raise additional revenue by extending the paid on-street parking hours in the city from the present 7.30am to 7.30pm to 7.30am to midnight.

Diners, revellers, shoppers and sports fans will will be asked to pay a flat rate of $4 from 7.30pm. The new charge, is expected to raise an extra $1.9 million, pushing the annual parking fee revenue to more than $38 million.

Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said that motorists should “factor in” the fee to their expenses, and also noted the $4 charge – applied to 3000 metered spots across the CBD – remained a much cheaper option than the city’s 30,000 private parking spaces.

Some CBD traders have expressed concerns that the increased parking fees will discourage people from travelling into the city.

SpaceOut provides a service for people looking for parking (or wanting to rent out their unused parking space) to find cheap and convenient Parking Spaces  for Rent in Melbourne.

Channel 9′s A Current Affair program has run a series of reports over the last few weeks about the methods Australian National Car Parks (ANCP) seem to be using to intimidate people into paying “fines” for failing to get a ticket at public Car Parks they manage.

It was alleged that ANCP take advantage of the fact that people are often unaware that they need to get a ticket – even though the car parks are clearly signed as “2 Hours Free Parking”.  It seems that if you fail to get a ticket (even if you stay for less than 2 hrs) ANCP staff have been issuing ‘liquidated damages’  demands for $66 – which quickly escalate to $88 and then $163 if you don’t pay in time – in some cases followed by a NOTICE OF INTENTION TO SUE.

However, as a private company, ANCP does not have legal authority to administer fines.

What the law says:

A DRIVER using a private car park enters into a contract with the operator to abide by the terms and conditions stated on signs (which must be prominently displayed).

Under contract law, parties are not entitled to impose penalties for breach of contract but can seek “liquidated damages” – which are defined as a reasonable estimate of the damage suffered as a result of the contract being breached. If a court finds the estimate is not reasonable it is defined as a penalty and becomes invalid.

If damages are sought by a private car-park operators but resisted by the driver the issue may end up in court, however, the company then has to demonstrate how the damage it suffered equals the damages it is seeking.

There is considerable doubt whether ANCP could justify the $66 damages they have been demanding.

But It’s all happened before :

This is certainly not the first time this type of practice has been reported.

In April 2007, The Age (Crackdown on car parking ‘bullies ) reported similar practices by Australian National Car Parks and highlighted that a number of Victorian Councils had banned (or were considering bans) on ANCP operating within their regions.

Moreland Council, which includes Brunswick, Coburg and Pascoe Vale, accused Australian National Car Parks of bullying behaviour, and Darebin Council, which includes Northcote and Preston, had asked the company to stop handing out tickets.

At the time ANCP was being investigated by the NSW Office of Fair Trading and had also been reported to Consumer Affairs Victoria.

In 2006, then NSW fair trading minister Diane Beamer urged drivers to “exercise extreme caution” in ANCP car parks because the company could have been engaging in “improper, misleading and deceptive conduct”.

In October 2008, the Herald Sun (Supermarket shoppers not legally obliged to pay parking fines ) reported that tens of thousands of Victorians had paid up for shopping centre parking fines that they were not legally obliged to pay.

On 10th October, Consumer Affairs Victoria issued a state-wide alert warning motorists that Care Park Pty Ltd had no power to issue fines or impose penalties at “free” supermarket car parks.  Also at that time Australian National Car Parks was at the centre of a case designed to test the legality of its demands, and a third company that issued demand notices – Parking Infringements Victoria – was under investigation by Consumer Affairs.

A Facebook group called The People vs Australian National Car Parks -  has been established with the aim of helping with information and advice.  There are also plenty of active forums discussing the issues, but consensus seems to be that if you do get issued with one of these demand notices – don’t panic and don’t lose sleep over it – simply throw the notice away.

The Colliers International parking rate survey, an annual review of Parking Rates across 140 city parking districts around the world, recently released their 2009 results. Sydney, Brisbane and Perth all ranked in the top 10 of the most expensive median monthly parking costs in the world.

With a median parking rate of $730, Sydney CBD was the most expensive in Australia and the fifth most expensive in the world. Perhaps surprisingly, #2 in Australia and 7th worldwide was Brisbane ($660), with Perth coming in a close 3rd in Australia and #9 globally at $645 per month.  Melbourne came in fourth in Australia ($425) followed by Adelaide ($275) and Canberra ($255).

The most expensive locations are London and London’s West End (which were ranked first and second)  followed by Amsterdam in third place.

If you are struggling to find a parking space at a price you can afford (or are willing to pay), it could very well be worth your while to take a look at an online service called SpaceOut (www.spaceout.com.au).  This new service provides listings of different types of spaces available for rent – Australia wide, and whilst they specialise in private storage spaces for homes and businesses, they also have a category for parking spaces. And the spaces they currently have available are a good deal cheaper than those detailed in the Colliers study.

The Average cost for parking Space listings on SpaceOut is dramatically cheaper than the monthly rate from the Colliers as outlined in the following table :

Whilst there are currently not many parking space listings on SpaceOut for Perth, there is quite a strong demand for spaces – with a number of parking Space Wanted listings.

We have seen very strong growth in our parking Space Listings, and when we became aware of the Colliers research data, we could certainly understand why.

Here is an outline of some of the new fees :

• Parking across a driveway: from $50 to $100 – 100% increase
• Parking in a disabled car park: from $60 to $200 – 333% increase
• Clogging an intersection: from $50 to $150 – 200% increase
• Breaching bus zones: from $100 to $150 – 50% increase
• Parking in a clearway: from $120 to $200 – 167% increase

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has said the large fine hikes were designed as a deterrent to drivers. ” The message is simple: If you do the wrong thing and you risk public safety or cause traffic congestion you will be fined. ” Cr Newman said.

So if you are looking to save a bit of money on Parking Fees you had better be very careful how you go about it, or you could be paying out a lot more in fines.

One alternative that can help you to save on the cost of parking and avoid parking fines altogether is by finding a parking space to rent.

We’ve decided to offer free space rental listings as a response to member feedback.  Whilst most members thought that $30 was pretty good value for the potential to earn $200 – $400 a month, they felt that while the site was still new the chance of the right person finding their listing was reduced.  We agree – and for the foreseeable future we expect that all listings will remain free.

We may switch back to paid listing at some stage in the future, so we suggest you take advantage of Free Listings right now!  We may also offer in the future a Premium Listing option, with more features and functionality, so please let us know any other features you’d like to see on the site.