There are loads of reasons why visitors will enter your apartment community: extended family comes to town, friends stop by for dinner, someone hosts a weekly small group, or families gather for a game night. And unless you live in a walkable, pedestrian-friendly city, all of your visitors have one thing in common: they will need somewhere to park their vehicle!
Beyond the simple white lines on the pavement, guests will also wonder: How long can I stay? Is guest parking free? How do I pay? Will I get a ticket if I don’t have a paper permit on my dashboard? The questions are endless!
Why you need a guest parking registration system
Help your guests feel happy when they enter your community, the same way they feel when their favorite song plays on the radio. Simplify apartment guest parking! Here’s how to have the best visitor parking registration system for your apartment community:
- First, designate visitor parking spaces.
- Then, provide easy online self-service registration.
- Next, establish time limits by vehicle or unit.
- Finally, enforce your apartment guest parking rules and communicate them clearly.
1. Designate visitor parking spaces
Don’t currently have any parking policies set up for apartment guest parking? Then start here! The primary best practice is to clearly designate visitor parking spaces. You can do this in a variety of ways.
First, decide where you’d like for guests to park. This is usually in front of the office for potential new residents, or in a central location so visitors can easily reach the unit they’re visiting.
Next, designate the apartment guest parking spaces. Some communities paint the word “visitor” or “guest” in each space. We recommend having signage that explains who can and cannot park here. These parking signs are an excellent way to briefly explain your apartment guest parking policies and help guests sign up for a visitor parking apartment registration.
2. Self-service visitor parking apartment registration
Thanks to self-service visitor parking apartment registration, there’s no longer a need to visit the office or use paper parking permits! Guests can register their vehicle from the convenience of their car before they even turn off the engine.
As an added bonus, the online registration displays parking rules and time limits, so guests understand the parking rules before they create a permit.
What if they need to pay for apartment guest parking? That’s easy to do from the online registration portal as well.
3. Establish apartment guest parking time limits
Everyone wants to snag the cheapest gas prices, the best deals on a new car, and a fair price for an oil change. Likewise, your apartment residents and visitors expect fair guest parking. Thankfully, that’s easy to accomplish!
Set apartment guest parking time limits by vehicle or by unit:
Allow each vehicle a set amount of free guest parking time. For example, each vehicle receives two hours of free guest parking. After those two hours are up, the visitor needs to pay for additional parking time.
Allow each unit a set amount of free guest parking time. Provide each unit with a specified amount of apartment guest parking per month, such as 10 days. On top of that, you can set limits so that each visitor may not park for longer than three days at a time.
Charge hourly rates. If guest parking is tight in your community or if you share spaces with local businesses/attractions, you can easily charge hourly rates for guest parking.
Charge daily rates. Do your residents often have visitors for the weekend, or people who stay longer than a few hours? In this case, provide the option for a guest to pay a standard day rate.
4. Enforce apartment guest parking rules
Once your visitor parking apartment registration is in place, there’s one more step to success: enforce your apartment guest parking rules. These are printed on your guest parking signs and listed on the self-registration page.
Have your enforcement agents regularly patrol your apartment guest parking spaces to ensure that visitors are registered, or that residents are not parked in these designated spaces.
Some parking management software options provide notifications 15 minutes before a guest parking permit expires. This preemptively reminds guests to not overstay their parking time or receive a parking violation. Additionally, you can block guests who have received multiple warnings or parking violations.
Which visitor parking registration software is right for your apartments?
With so many guests coming and going in your community, a solid visitor parking apartment registration system is essential. Today, there are numerous parking management software options, but which one provides the best apartment parking solutions? Try Parking Boss by Community Boss!
- 24/7 self-service visitor parking apartment registration
- Set vehicle or unit time limits
- Contains built-in payment processing via Parking Attendant
- Passcodes and Smart Meters™ enforce your apartment guest parking rules
- Live, interactive parking map show available visitor parking spaces
- Custom-designed guest parking signs
Ready to upgrade your visitor parking apartment registration? See Parking Boss in live action by scheduling a demo today!