Help! Ownership is asking for our recommendation on setting parking prices for a new community

Help! Ownership is asking for our recommendation on setting parking prices for a new community (200 unit midrise) we're managing.
Q: Do you charge for parking at your community? If so, how much do you charge for which spots and under what circumstances? And most important — why and how did you decide on that?

Yes, and it $25-$40 at the different communities we bill for.

Not one size fits all. See what competition does so you know. Is there limited parking or abundance ? Is it covered garage ( that always costs ) or surface parking ?

Joy Arsham Anzalone There's both indoor, structured parking and outdoor surface parking. We have a small number of private garages and covered carports too. Do you always charge for covered garage parking? Sounds like you do, I'm curious why, so that I can take that to our ownership. And what about surface parking? In what instances would you charge? And how do you decide whether to do assigned or unassigned?

We only charge for garage parking, $50 and you can only have one. Mainly because there are 6 units a building with 6 attached garages. When people have 2, it throws off available garages then we have those who want garages and they are getting a garage in a totally different building. It just creates too much chaos. So it’s one garage space per resident. Then we do have a few units with assigned spaces so no extra charge for those.Lot parking is free, first come first serve. We don’t have any covered spaces. We do have a sister property with a similar setup and it’s $25 for covered parking.I will say when doing comp shops we made sure to price our parking lower than the competitors. Money matters to people and sometimes saving $25 to $75 makes a difference.Also just for our area as well, people really want the individual garages. The huge parking garages get hit with theft soooo often. It’s like shopping for criminals. Every car out in the open and ready to have their catalytic converters stolen or the whole car. But I know our main comp was charging $100 for parking.Ridiculous in my opinion.

Allie Gartside What led you guys to decide to keep parking mostly free after seeing that comps are charging? I'm looking at comps, but ownership really wants to increase prices (we do 1-2 spots free per unit but charge $75/mo for additional, but they want us to look at charging for all).

Evan Goldin For starters the type of parking in the area. One comp had covered parking and uncovered. We don’t have covered. Then there is street parking all over by us. Then another property had a huge parking structure. Again we can’t even offer assigned parking because we have less spaces. Keeping the spaces free and first come first serve is enticing to prospects when EVERYONE else is charging for ALL parking. Which we do have shared garages - so we could charge for that. Which is where the free parking came in handy for us. The prospects like that they have the option for free parking but they eventually end up renting a garage and just about all of our garages are rented. We have had to do waitlists before as well. Not often but once or twice.You just need to think from the prospects point of view and what is gonna make them lease with you. You and the comp could have the same rates and similar styles but even penny counts to them. So parking could be that deciding factor and in their head and they save $100 a month.And again cause we don’t have covered parking to add covered parking would just be an expense for the owner and they have other places to put their money.

I'm an 84 apartment community that has their own parking lot (not a garage or anything in a city setting). It is open and free parking and first come first serve. We do not charge for parking and we do not do visitors passes.

Magnolia Ridge Gaffney Have you thought about charging just for guest parking? Why or why not? And for your open parking, do you track vehicles at all? Or not worry about it?

We have thought about it and wanted to charge $35 per month for a reserved parking spot but we don't have an area to put a reserved parking sign as we would have to cut into the pavement and we don't have designated spots to select. If we had a grass area in front of the spots, we would be able to put it in the ground. We currently track vehicles by having make, model, color, year and license plate on file in the office.

I also manage a midrise with parking garages. Garage parking is assigned. Each apartment has 1 assigned and select floor plans have 2 assigned spots. Parking is extremely limited and is priced $100 for an additional space or $150 for a tandem. I only have about 14 rentable spots and a very long waitlist. We are in an area with very limited street parking.

Brandy Blazen Thanks, this is super helpful! How popular are the additional spots? Sounds like you only have 14 total, right? Have you guys considered charging for the 1-2 included spots — why or why not? And whereabouts is your community? This is Riverside, CA.

Evan Goldin we have a waiting list for our extra spots. I have asked management but they would like to keep it the way it is at this time. Most of our comps have 2 spots included. We are located in San Diego.

Call your comps and see what they offer as it will vary by region

What market are you in?

Cindy Elder Tatum Southern California, in the suburbs (riverside).

We charge for parking garage access, $95/ month. Street/uncovered parking is free. I'm at a suburban garden style property, downtown Denver is $150 minimum...When I started in 2001, carports were included with rent in AZ & CA.

Kiely Barrett That's a great comparison! This is Riverside County, CA. How did you come to those prices?

Evan Goldin primarily competitor comparisons AND considering what we can charge vs what we should.