Greystar reimagines parking management for multi-family in downtown LA

The Challenge

Greystar is known for its innovative and tech-centric approach to managing residential communities. The company manages buildings all over the world and regularly equips its team with the tools and training to effectively manage its properties.

Parking lots, however, are notoriously low-tech — even at Greystar. Among property managers, paper records and paper enforcement tools (like stickers or hangtags) are still commonplace. At best, Greystar's management teams are adding/removing parking charges in their property management system, Yardi. But Yardi, while good for managing apartments and extra charges, lacks basic tools to track parking assignments or vehicle information.

That left the Mariposa staff billing for parking in one system, but managing parking assignments and resident vehicle data using a mix of paper and spreadsheets the team created from scratch.

This approach is an extremely common strategy for property managers who lack Parkade, and are left to track parking themselves. 

As Property Manager Eunice Lee explained, that solution fell well short of Mariposa’s needs. “We created a parking spreadsheet, but it was always difficult to keep track of turnovers. There were too many hands in the cookie jar. 

“We didn’t know which  team member had assigned a space, if a resident had already moved out, or if a vacant space was really vacant. It was just chaotic.”

Andrew Petit, Mariposa’s assistant manager, agrees. “As someone moved in, we would enter their car information and their unit number in our spreadsheet. The problem is that the system gets messed up if everyone doesn’t stay on top of it.” 

Which is exactly what happened. As parking became more disorganized, problems began to pile up. 

Cars were regularly misparked. Some residents weren’t paying for spots or were sneaking visitors’ vehicles into the lot. Staff members couldn’t confidently track which spots were in use and which were not. The spreadsheet and the information it contained were unreliable, leaving limited options for resolving parking issues or towing misparked cars. 

When Eunice was away for a month, Andrew couldn’t find parking spots for new residents to park in. They were initially told to park on the street, and then as a last resort, Andrew converted the ground floor level to unassigned parking, which quickly became popular with unauthorized vehicles parked by guests. Residents who were paying for parking often couldn’t find parking for their own vehicles, bringing parking to a breaking point. 

The team started searching for a better system, and found Parkade. 

The Solution

Parkade offered a better path: Automate their parking management, make parking self-serve for residents and offload customer service to Parkade’s 24/7 team. 

Building management picked a transition date, emailed residents about the change and removed all parking charges from its billing system. Management shared its parking records — which Parkade then audited and individually verified with residents — and then imported into Parkade’s system. 

Residents clicked the link in the email announcement to download Parkade, saw their existing parking leases pop up to confirm and added their billing information. 

“For us, switching to Parkade was really easy,” Eunice says. “Parkade took all the headache away from us, so it wasn’t difficult at all.” 

Directly in the Parkade app, residents now: 

• Book short or long-term parking 
• Sublease their spots to other residents or guests
• Report problems and get temporarily relocated
• Pay for parking
• Change long-term parking spots 

To ensure parking still meets Mariposa’s needs, Parkade lets management set all needed parameters and guardrails — like limiting residents to 2 parking spots per unit and controlling pricing. They also have app and web-based oversight over all parking records, through Parkade’s monitoring tools, in case questions arise. 

But management is no longer the gatekeeper. They’re not micromanaging parking. Everything is handled by Parkade’s system, or their 24/7 customer service team, and the results have been compelling.

“I remember giving tours and telling people, ‘At this time, we do not have any parking',” Assistant Manager Andrew Petit says. “Now, we have plenty of parking for new residents.”

The Results

Parking utilization and capacity 

Switching to Parkade has been transformative to Mariposa’s parking utilization and supply. Mariposa now has far more parking at its disposal because: 

• Parking records are always accurate, so mistakes never leave money on the table

• Parking leases can be stopped or started instantly, directly by residents, so there’s far less time between long-term leases 

• When not in use, residents can sublease their spots to other residents 

• Spots can be rented short-term if not assigned long-term 

• Residents who used to rent long-term parking just for occasional guest use can now just rent spots short-term when needed 

• Staff parking can be leased to guests on nights and weekends 

With all these great enhancements combined, Mariposa has seen a jump in peak parking utilization — the number of cars parked on-site at peak hours of demand — from 48% to 61%. That’s 93 cars parked on-site at peak hours in recent surveys, vs 66 cars before Parkade — and all vehicles are now parked with paid reservations. 

The always-accurate parking records made the biggest dent in the problem, with the parking log audit revealing 18 spots that were incorrectly assigned and could be put to use. Another 8 spots were made available from subleasing by traveling residents, or residents who used to rent long-term, opting to just rent short-term when needed instead.

That’s helped Mariposa go from a 15-spot shortage to a 10-spot surplus — a huge shift that the team quickly used to get more leases signed.

One new resident, Alejandra, normally would have only been given one parking spot, causing her to opt against signing a lease. Instead, with the extra supply of parking, she and her husband now have two parking spots. 

“The ability to have two parking spots for my husband and me was a huge reason we signed the lease at Mariposa,” Alejandra says. 

Revenue jump

Even accounting for Parkade’s minimal monthly fees, parking revenue at Mariposa has spiked significantly since switching to Parkade. 

That’s a natural result of removing management as gatekeepers and letting residents book parking directly: Spots get rented instead of sitting empty. Residents now rent parking for as little as an hour, and they do so constantly. In just the first two months since Parkade launched, residents paid for short-term parking more than 250 times each month. 

“No guest parking was always an issue,” said Andrew. “Now we have guest parking, and it’s bringing in additional revenue for the building with no work on our side.” 

With parking being easier to rent and total flexibility around terminating rentals, management also raised long-term parking prices as leases expired. Parkade now offers 11 separate price points for long term parking at Mariposa based on space location, desirability, EV access and building proximity — versus just two before Parkade. 

More granular pricing is much more easily accomplished with Parkade, since residents can browse and book parking directly. More pricing options also help better match residents’ budgets and parking needs, with smaller cars getting discounts for compact spots or price-sensitive residents paying less to park in the farthest-flung spots. 

Adding icing on the cake: When residents sublease spots between each other, Mariposa earns a 25% cut, adding a brand new source of revenue. 

With all these improved parking dynamics, it’s no surprise that Mariposa’s parking revenues have jumped 159% since Parkade launched. And that’s after fees. 

That money is always collected too. Parkade has also been able to ensure 100% payment compliance for parking, meaning that 100% of long-term parkers have paid for their spots in full. 

“Parkade’s payment compliance is outstanding,” says Greystar Regional Manager Brook Purcell.

Streamlined Enforcement 

Post-Parkade, parking enforcement has become more streamlined. 

With all parking assignment and vehicle information always accurate and up-to-date, Parkade automatically handles inbound issues in seconds. For management, this process is completely hands-off. 

When residents have an issue, like reporting that someone is parked in their spot, they’re able to report the problem themselves in the Parkade app in seconds. From there, Parkade can instantly offer a temporary space — even at 2am — greatly reducing the need to tow cars. Parkade contacts residents to resolve problems, issues warnings and fines, and even arranges towing services as a last resort. 

This is a major sea change from how parking enforcement was handled in the past. 

“We had the courtesy officer check the vehicles parked in improper locations. But really we would only find out if something was amiss if a resident reported it,” Eunice explains.

“Residents could get away with parking in assigned spaces that didn’t belong to them, because it was so hard for us to do enforcement. We could never be sure we were towing the right person.” 

After adopting Parkade, the number of reported parking incidents has fallen from an average of 4.25 per week to an average of 1.2 per week. 

“When unauthorized parking was reported, we told residents we’d reach out to the vehicle owner. But that wasn’t true — we couldn’t, because we just didn’t know what was accurate or who owned what vehicle.”

Parkade has also eliminated the need to conduct parking audits, which is a common practice for property managers trying to stay on top of parking arrangements and usage. 

Because all spots are rented with regularity and problem reports flow to Parkade and Mariposa staff, every spot is essentially constantly audited. 

Problems or unauthorized vehicles are reported quickly, and regularly, so data never gets out of date. 

These changes have helped to make parking more accessible to residents while empowering the Mariposa team to operate in confidence, knowing that the parking situation is under control. 

Happier residents 

Mariposa’s residents have also been enamored with the change. 

“People don’t really come to me to ask about parking anymore, or if they do, I direct them to the app,” Andrew says. “No one comes back to me to tell me they didn’t get their issue sorted out. 

That’s not only borne out in the usage data seen to date, but in feedback management and Parkade have received. One prospective resident who learned about Parkade on a tour said “Parkade — that’s cool! It’s so unique to be able to have guest parking, especially in Koreatown. I can finally have a social life again.” 

Whether it’s immediate results when issues arise, the ability to book short-term parking or the ability to sublease their spots, residents have been thrilled. 

Vastly reduced management workload 

It wasn’t long ago that parking sucked away massive time from property management. “When someone moved in,” Eunice says, “it took me a 10-15 mins trying to confirm that a spot was actually available to be assigned.” She estimates she’s saving 24 hours/mo. 

Parkade solved these issues by providing self management tools for residents to solve their own parking needs and by providing remote support to troubleshoot outstanding issues. 

“We don’t have any parking issues anymore!” Andrew said. “There’s a confidence in not having to deal with parking anymore.” 

With the reduced workload, the team at Mariposa has been able to focus on renting units, improving the resident experience, and tending to more pressing property needs. 

As Eunice put it, “Parkade is parking management on autopilot.” 

“There’s no surefire system that works well for parking until we found Parkade. Because it’s ancillary, our property management systems aren’t designed to properly handle parking, and we just end up resorting to spreadsheets."

Brook Purcell, the Regional Manager at Greystar, agreed with the sentiment.

"Every property manager ends up reinventing the wheel, so it’s just a no-brainer to use Parkade.”