The Challenge

Many buildings, especially those with parking garages in busy areas, find that they have two key problems with it comes to parking violations.

Problem #1: Unauthorized individuals park in guest spaces. They don’t live or work in the building. They aren’t visiting people there. Unfortunately, that isn’t stopping people from parking in them. It’s hard to tell where those unauthorized visitors are coming from, and it’s even harder to catch them in the act!

Problem #2: Guests are staying far longer than they’re supposed to. They’re authorized users, but their cars just sit there, hour after hour. Maybe a car is left sitting there overnight, or maybe it just lingers there for far longer than it should, based on the number of time guests spend in your building.

Residential parking violations often result in frustrated tenants, residents, and guests. The people who really need to use those parking spaces are angry because they can’t–not to mention the fact that if someone else isn’t following the rules, they don’t understand why they have to! Parking garage violations are particularly problematic because it can be difficult to access those spaces or even to see what’s happening with the space until you’re inside the garage itself. Unfortunately, it can be extremely difficult to track what vehicles are authorized!

The Solution: ParqEx Enforcer

ParqEx Enforcer offers you the chance to enforce your parking space rules and ensure that you’re able to better manage your parking spaces in general. Here’s how it works:

You control who’s able to access the lot. Building residents can choose to let you list their spaces for rent, or they can do it on their own–or they can keep their spaces to themselves! This way, you’ll be able to control the availability of spaces in your parking garage more effectively.

You can offer digital “garage door” opening. No need to provide a physical item, which can leave guests struggling to park if it gets lost. Instead, opt for a digital parking pass that will let them straight into the parking garage–and limit their use according to your specific requirements.

You can see which cars are supposed to be in the lot and which ones aren’t. Know at a glance which cars are associated with which resident–and which ones do not belong to anyone in your building. As a result, you’ll be able to easily hand out parking tickets and fines if needed, all without disturbing your residents.

Work with any platform you like. ParqEx Enforcer is designed to work with a range of other platforms, allowing you to integrate it easily with other platforms and devices.

Use paperless or paper tickets depending on your preference. How do you want to issue citations to guests who have overstayed their welcome? You have the choice of paperless or paper tickets at your convenience.

If you want better parking security for your apartment building or other multifamily dwellings, don’t wait! Parking lot abuse quickly grows frustrating for both you and your tenants. Schedule a demo or call today to learn how we can transform your building parking needs, provide better parking lot security, and make it easier for you to manage your parking. Enforcer has the potential to make all of your residents’ lives easier.

The post How The ParqEx Enforcer Helps You Catch Building Parking Violations appeared first on ParqEx.

As rapid innovation continues with IoT technologies, the results of their combined use are yet to be fully understood. The reverberations of the shift, though, will be felt as an after effect of the sweeping change, the transformation from outdated legacy systems, modes, methods, and tools – to innovative online software solutions in the cloud.

Smart cities are being developed by many individual companies using separate systems that communicate with each other. 

Market Analysis and Knowledgeable Research

One of the most challenging and logistically confusing daily tasks is parking. Traveling around in cities or unfamiliar neighborhoods, drivers are wasting valuable time and money trying to find the ideal parking spot. At the same time, the home parking garage is still a piece of equipment that has yet to fully be integrated into the digital home.

Whether you’re booking your spare bedroom or an entire investment property, where your guest’s park can make a big difference. Garage space provides a protected and homey welcome, but you don’t just want to leave your garage door hanging open until your guests arrive or make them call you to open it.  Multifamily residents currently rely on a non guaranteed reservations for a spot within their garage or guest parking is not even available at the community. Residents also find having to exchange a fob or provide a parking sticker as a means of validation. IoT technology is working together through the innovative cloud and mobile solutions, in order to solve complex logistical issues. The agility and flexibility being offered by the cloud are far preferable to, exclusively, on-premise logistical solutions. 

IoT technology is working together through the innovative cloud and mobile solutions, in order to create business opportunities and solve complex logistical issues. The agility and flexibility being offered by the cloud are far preferable to, exclusively, on-premises logistical solutions.

Sights On The Future of Real Estate Tech

The IoT is always involved when speaking about smart anything, and almost all technology is smart at this point. Smart parking garages are using monitoring devices to detect vacant spaces, then automatically sharing the data to their own systems and any specified partners.

For instance, the parking garage business may want to automate real-time updates of vacancies to the city’s tourist guide mobile app, or event centers’ apps might want their customers to have access to available spaces.

This isn’t to say that all hardware, paper, and analog systems will be completely eliminated, rather, they’ll be reduced and minimized. SaaS, PaaS, and emerging subscription software are allowing SMBs to streamline, expand, and improve the quality of their work and production – this is hard to ignore. Technology is promising to be the best solution for overcrowded city streets, in the U.S. and worldwide.

Competition in this space has generated an increased awareness from the real estate owners and the providers of these technology stressing their importance for growth. The Future of Real Estate Tech continues to push VC’s and startups in this space for a multitude of reasons. No one has found the key to Pandora’s box at this given junction, leaving the door open for challengers to propel the groundwork needed for the sector’s continued growth and development.

Property Management and Residents Look For Education

The real estate community is using technology in ways that make sense for residents. The advantages and opportunities that innovative cloud and mobile technologies offer are promising to solve parking woes and boost the local economy at the same time. Before, solving parking woes would have meant building more parking spaces, which means cities and/or businesses had to spend money, therefore making taxpayers and consumers pay for it.

The IoT, in relation to smart cities, is the technology and online systems being used to create innovative solutions and solve complex logistical issues, such as parking. For instance, parking spot sensors are being used by parking garages and city governments, in order to inform drivers of vacancies (and owners of non-compliance) and navigate them to the spot – all through their smartphones. Technology and the IoT have even shown to play a positive factor on individual health.

Essentially, what makes IoT technology so powerful is its ability to communicate and integrate with other systems and technological solutions within a city or community. Using cloud and mobile computing technology, combined with the nearly universal rate of smartphone usage, the IoT is creating innovative solutions not possible before. Closing a garage door from across the world through a mobile app is a good example.

Listen To The IoT Parking Expert

Katie Williams recognizes the lack of movement and innovation within the real estate realm. IoT within the private parking/ multifamily properties are newly discovered and emerging – there is a need to revolutionize and disrupt the current trends and inefficiencies with smart real estate technologies and smarter parking.

Katie realizes there is an underutilization of parking assets in the Chicago and surrounding markets. This is evident by poorly managed private garages offering ease of resident-guest experience or lack thereof. She looks to educate multifamily owners, residents, and property managers on the hidden value of their parking and how IoT technologies serve as a tool for the space. They provide an additional amenity in a space that is always searching for the next best thing, with a value-add to aid in boosting their ROI and bottom lines.

Please reach out to Katie if you would like additional information on how these IoT solutions can help your property today!

The post Multifamily ROI Impacted by Technology Solutions appeared first on ParqEx.

Finding parking for guests when you live in a condo or multi-family home the guest parking challenge is one that always comes to mind, especially if you don’t have adequate space. Many times, you find yourself trying to sneak guests in. Your next door neighbor isn’t usually home at this time, right? That parking space down the parking lot isn’t in regular use…you think. Unfortunately, even with your best efforts, your guests may find themselves needing to move their cars midway through their visit–or worse, there may be no parking when they arrive. Fortunately, there’s a solution: ParqEx’s GuestParq feature. Thanks to GuestParq, you can find parking spaces for your guests before they arrive.

Take Advantage of Unused Spaces in Your Lot

When your neighbors use ParqEx, you won’t have to worry about whether or not they’re going to suddenly appear to get their spot back–or worse, that your guests might end up having their car towed. Instead, you can simply hunt for spaces throughout the condo parking lot on GuestParq. You’ll be amazed by how many of your neighbors don’t use their extra spaces–or, in some cases, don’t use their parking spaces at all. With GuestParq, you can connect with them easily, using their parking spaces for your guests. They get paid a small stipend; you get convenient parking for your guests. It’s a win all the way around!

Find Ideal Spots for Your Guests

Sometimes, there’s just not a spot in the lot, no matter how hard you try to find one. Perhaps you live in a multifamily dwelling with too short a driveway to allow for extra cars. Whatever the case, you need to be able to find a decent parking space before your guests arrive–and they seem to be in incredibly short supply! Thanks to GuestParq, you can quickly and effortlessly find spaces near your home that are perfect for your guests. It’ll be the last time you have to worry about the neighbors bursting in and complaining because your guests have accidentally blocked their parking spaces, or worse, borrowed them.

Get Spots Tailored to Your Needs

Not everyone has the same level of comfort when it comes to pulling into a parking space, especially if you’re in an unfamiliar area. Are your guests looking for a parking space with plenty of room to get out? Do they need extra room for a large vehicle or to help unload the kids? Some guests may feel more comfortable with a parking spot in a well-lit area, especially if they’ll be walking alone to their cars when your event is over. Thanks to ParqEx, you can easily flip through pictures and descriptions of the parking space, allowing you to determine which spots will be a great fit–both literally and figuratively.

Rent Out Your Unused Spaces

Do you have an extra parking space that you aren’t using at your condo? Do you have the perfect parking space tucked away just down the road from a multifamily dwelling? If you have a parking space that you aren’t using, why not turn it into extra money? Just snap a few pictures, create a listing on ParqEx, and voila! Before you know it, you’ll have extra money coming your way.

If you want to learn more about ParqEx and how it can transform your ability to park in the city, whether you’re parking outside a condo or down the street from the must-see event of the year, Schedule a Demo Today! You’ll discover a wealth of possibilities, including the convenience of an app that will streamline parking no matter where you are in the cities we cover and make it easy for you to earn extra money on a space that you aren’t using.

The post Solving The Guest Parking Challenge in Condos or Multi-Family Homes appeared first on ParqEx.

Cities like Chicago are getting smarter, and not just in a metaphorical sense. Urban areas are becoming increasingly connected, with the express aim of making life easier for both residents and anyone working downtown.

With its Smart City Initiatives, Chicago has been at the forefront of a trend that has swept the nation and even got an official endorsement and federal funding from the White House last year. But what does that mean for you? Among many other things, these initiatives may have a significant impact on your neighborhood parking spots.

Chicago’s Smart City Initiative

Last year, the office Mayor Rahm Emanuel stated his goal to make Chicago “the most data-driven government in the world.” The goal is to use WiFi spots to report data back to the city and improve efficiency as a result. For example, sensors can keep park lawns from drying out, improve air quality, and more.

Smart City Initiatives are on their way across the globe, with cities like London, Barcelona, and Singapore leading the race to ultimate connectivity. Chicago is a relatively late entrant to the race, but has already established itself alongside them as a leader thanks to the initiative that the city calls “Array of Things.” Here’s how our government describes the project:

The Array of Things (AoT) is an urban sensing project, a network of interactive, modular sensor boxes that will be installed around Chicago to collect real-time data on the city’s environment, infrastructure, and activity for research and public use. AoT will essentially serve as a “fitness tracker” for the city, measuring factors that impact livability in Chicago such as climate, air quality and noise.

Technology Maximizes Efficiency

The description of the AoT as the city’s ‘fitness tracker’ is particularly descriptive in how it communicates the project as maximizing efficiency through technology. Anyone who wears a Fitbit knows just how important simply tracking your daily activities can be. You may not have been aware of how many steps you take during the day, but if you do, you will forego the elevator for the steps at the end of the day just to reach your daily goal.

The Internet of Things has become more common and is expected to continue rising in importance drastically in the near future. More and more, common household items are being connected to the internet to maximize efficiency. It’s no longer a surprise or science fiction to see stories about refrigerators ordering new food automatically on your behalf through smart connectivity.

By 2020, researchers estimate that $1.7 trillion dollars in consumer spending will be directly connected to internet-enabled household devices. Perhaps even more relevant for the purposes of this article, 90% of cars will be connected to the internet in the same time frame.

The Internet of Things as a City Connector

Take the IoT concept and apply it to larger urban areas, and you have Chicago’s Smart City Initiative (or Array of Things, depending on what you prefer to call it). The core concept is identical: the more connected you are to the environment around you, the more your life will improve and the more efficient you can be.

The success of that endeavor, of course, requires civic participation. As the City of Chicago outlines,

As smart cities embrace and deploy innovative technology embedded in public spaces, residents voices need to be represented. To prevent disconnect between residents and their city’s technology, broad engagement is key — not only to inform residents of innovations, but to take inventory of public concerns and questions associated with them.

This Smart City Initiative, then, is more than just an abstract concept deployed by the local government without direct impact on its residents. Instead, it’s a comprehensive project that depends on and benefits from constituency input. With that information, the Array of Things transforms into a powerful tool to improve your life and work. And that benefit is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in the ways in which parking connects to the project.

How Smart Parking Plays into Smart Cities

Whether you live or work in Chicago, you know how problematic parking can be. It is either expensive or impossible to find. The parking spots are there, and some of their owners may even be desperate to give them up to anyone who asks. But without a way to connect the spots to the drivers who seek them out, major inefficiencies remain.

That’s where parking connected IoT enters the equation. More specifically, the recent initiative to turn Chicago into one of the world’s smartest city could be a godsend for your parking needs. As we’ve outlined in a previous post,

If we had a way to predict where people would need and want to be in the near future, we could add living spaces as well as parking spaces in the places they will be needed most… With the right data and predictive systems, (we) would have the ability to relieve parking issues by adding parking solutions in the neighborhoods and other parts of cities that need them most.

Much like food-ordering refrigerators, this scenario is not necessarily science fiction anymore. Already, the Internet of Things is reducing parking woes in the city of Chicago. Rather than having to rely on intuition and past knowledge in finding a parking spot, apps like ParqEx can provide you with real-time updates on vacancies to minimize the time it takes to search for a spot.

As far back as 2012, experts on the subject predicted that the Internet of Things might find its most beneficial application in solving the parking problems for many of America’s downtown areas. As no less than 30% of all drivers in downtown areas are simply looking for parking, imagine the benefits of a solution that gets drivers off the street, reducing both pollution and traffic congestion at the same time.

The most frustrating part of that statistic may be the fact that these parking spots are actually available. Drivers just don’t know how to find them, leaving their owners without revenue and the cars on the street.

The key to success in changing that problem consists of two variables: visibility and timeliness. Parking situations can change in a second, meaning that any potential solution has to communicate availability instantly and reliably. That, in addition to a platform that allows parking spot owners to share their vacancies and drivers to find them, is crucial to reducing the number of people simply looking for parking spots.

Turning Chicago into a Smart City, in this case, will also improve the automated efficiency with which anyone looking to go downtown can look for (and find) a parking spot where they need it, and without paying a fortune. In other words, this Smart City Initiative will have benefits for literally anyone entering or driving around the city with a car.

And that’s why we’re so excited about the Array of Things currently transforming the city of Chicago. Executed correctly, it will not just improve the efficiency with which our local government can manage the city, but also improve livability for each of its residents. To learn more about our contributions to that cause, and how ParqEx is using the Internet of Things to improve your ability to find a parking spot, contact us.

The post Chicago’s Smart City Initiative and Its Impact on Your Neighborhood Parking Spots appeared first on ParqEx.