Two North Shore Locals Out to Solve Our Community Parking and Storage Congestion

parking and storage congestion:

• Parking options are scarce and inconvenient, particularly around stations on North Shore. See recent SMH article: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/solving-sydneys-car-parking-dilemma–one-driveway-garage-at-a-time-20150804-girqoy.html
• On street boat and caravan parking is also causing serious congestion on residential roads, taking up long term spaces. There are 204,000 registered boat trailers in NSW, with many left idle on street curbs outside houses for 3+ month periods. Research (Transport for NSW Report March 2013) has indicated that 70% of these vehicles are stored outside residents’ own houses, causing congestion and severe parking shortages particularly around the harbour entry points. Removing the boat trailers from the street is a controversial community issue, with the vast majority of constituents supporting laws which either ban or limit on street parking for such vehicles. It is now over 8 months since NSW Government passed legislation empowering local councils to impound boat trailers which parked long term for over 3 months – enforcement power sits with each of the councils, how have the councils reacted to the change? The government also set aside $5m to assist local councils and other organisation establish off street boat trailer facilities to help ease congestion – where or what actions have been undertaken with these funds?
• Similarly, shrinking living spaces and a rapidly growing urban population and migration preference for metropolitan cities means that our cities are becoming severely overcrowded. For anyone living within 10 km of the city, space is expensive and becoming more so, and as it does, so too does the cost of metropolitan storage space.  Compounding the issue, we are becoming a more transient society with:
  • Booming real estate prices, 43% of people have moved homes in past 5 years (ABS)
  • The average person will live in 10 houses over the course of their life. (propertyupdate.com.au)
  • In 2012, 372,200 people left Australia with intention of leaving “for good” however most people do return with 75% of people returning within 2 years back home (Advance.org) 
• A new start-up marketplace has emerged to disrupt the industry and significantly reduce storage costs. Two budding (not so young) North Shore entrepreneurs have teamed together to build the latest online marketplace, Spacer Marketplaces. Founders are north shore locals who have successful track records in establishing start-ups and venture capital. Mike Rosenbaum – tech nerd, co-founder of Auction Brokers and Deals Direct before selling his business into listed company GraysOnline. Roland Tam – completed +$200m private equity and M&A transactions .
• The traditional self-storage market is worth $1 billion as an industry but what we call the grey market – mums and dads storing their kids goods in their garages and homes is worth an additional $5b;  we service only a tiny portion of that today. Peer to peer self-storage provides the convenience of a location in your local neighbourhood, with savings of up to 50% off traditional self-storage facilities. P2P self-storage is relatively new in Australia, however in Europe there are now 10,000’s of people sharing space, and this is growing rapidly.  Storage is a relatively new vertical in the sharing economy following in the footsteps of Uber and Airbnb in the rising tsunami that is collaborative consumption.
• Traditional self-storage brands (Kennards, Storage King) dominate the storage landscape, and gorge off the lack of options available for consumers  – common complaints from users of such facilities include:
  • High costs and extra charges for insurance
  • Lock-in contracts for minimum periods
  • Inconvenient locations
  • Inconvenient access within facility (far from entrance)

About Spacer:

• Spacer is an online marketplace for storage space. The business connects hosts (people with a garage, yard or room) with renters looking for affordable, convenient and accessible storage options. Being a peer to peer service, storage costs are up to 50% cheaper and Spacer manages the vetting of all renters, payments and property guarantees on behalf of all users.
• At Spacer’s website (www.spacer.com.au) or IOS app, you can make extra passive income from your unused space or find efficient storage options to meet all your requirements on no-lock in contracts.
• Spacer Hosts (typically empty nesters or young families) make on average $3,000 per year, simply by renting out their unused single lock-up garage space for storage. The beauty of this is that you can rent out space that is under-utilised and is non-personal space, typically outside of your living areas of your home.

How much your storage space is worth:

Space type: $ monthly value (inner city) / (outer city)

Garage $320 / $250

Driveway: $200 / $150

Attic: $200 / $150

Room (storage): $250/ $200

Storage cage: $130 / $100

Front or Backyard: $130 (boat entry points)