Apartment owners, who own two or three parking spaces in mixed-use towers, are renting out their unoccupied parking space, 'Emirates24|7' can reveal. The owners can get anywhere between Dh5,000 and Dh7,000 per year, says a real estate agent. "We leased a three-bed apartment in Dubai Marina recently and offered the tenant just one parking slot to which he agreed.We rented out the second one and got the landlord an extra Dh5,000," a property agent, who works for an established brokerage company, said on conditions of anonymity. Although renting out parking spaces in residential/mixed-use buildings isn't a popular business model yet in the emirate, it may gain popularity over the time. "Families staying in new Dubai find it difficult to get a parking space for their cars. If they have two cars and one parking space, it's a nightmare looking for a space and hence they look to rent a parking space in close by buildings," said the agent. In Greens and Views, residents have been using community websites to seek information on availability of parking spaces in their neighborhood. "We are thinking of moving to The Views. We have two cars and I don't want to search for parking space every night. If anyone has an extra parking space, let us how much does it could cost," reads a post on a local social website. A resident of Golf Tower recently posted on a social website: "Any extra parking available in Golf Tower, please send me email and tell me about the rent." Another post read: "Hello, we have an extra space at Fairways Towers in The Views - if anyone needs one pls let me know." According to 2010 data from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) published by the Dubai Statistics Centre (DSC), Dubai has more than one million registered vehicles serving 1.9 million residents. With the number of light vehicles (primarily cars, excluding light buses and light mechanical vehicles) at close to 900,000, that works out to about two cars for every man, woman and child residing in the emirate, among the world's highest ratios. According to RTA stats, there were an additional 189,826 light vehicles and motorcycles registered in 2010 compared with 2009, taking the total number of such vehicles to 914,320 in 2010, 26 per cent more than the 724,494 vehicles registered in 2009. In 2009, an Irish company offered was selling car parking spaces in a tower in Business Bay as an investment alternatives for euros 15,000 euro. The company claimed investors could fetch as high as euro 5,000 in rent. However, the project never went ahead and the website no longer lists any Dubai projects on its website. Emirates 24|7
