Rush for inner-city parking spaces

Joanne Zhu is renting out her Southbank car park.

MORE than 5400 drivers are looking to rent about 130 car spaces on offer in Melbourne and city-fringe suburbs, a new website has found.

The demand to rent a permanent car park from a private owner in Melbourne and Yarra suburbs is 40 times the supply.

Renting out surplus car spaces and garages has boomed since the establishment of the website findacar park.com.au, which links car-space tenants with landlords - along with buyers and sellers of car spaces.

Southbank’s Joanne Zhu has never needed her car space in Sturt St, so it made sense to rent it out.

“I work in the city and the walk to my workplace takes only 20 minutes. And I am not a good driver so I don’t need a car and have no plan to buy a car in the near future,” Ms Zhu said.

“I usually get about $180 to $200 a month for the space and I normally use that money as part of living support, such as grocery shopping etc.

“ I reckon it is a good decision to rent out an empty car space.”

Findacarpark founder Francis Armstrong said commercial car parking prices were sky high.

“If you have a car space sitting idle, you could be missing out on more than $2500 a year,” he said.

“Your empty driveway, unused garage or vacant car space is parking gold.”

Mr Armstrong said some car spaces were rented within hours of being listed.

“We’ve had a lot of people add thousands to their household income by listing their vacant car space.”

The demand for cheaper parking had never been higher, with some car parks costing more than $60 a day.

People simply list their vacant car space on the site, pay the $30 one-off fee and wait for interested parties to contact them direct.

The most lucrative are car parks in the city or South Melbourne, which can command almost $270 a month.