Car collectors far and wide will admit that the Achilles heel of their all-consuming hobby is not the availability nor the price of their cars. It’s finding a place to put them.

It can be argued that having the space to accommodate a car (especially a classic) is as precious as the car itself. That’s why in 2019, local car collector and founder of Spacefit, Brian Foster, decided to make a connection between vehicle collectors and empty garage owners to fill a need that many vehicle owners face today: The lack of space.

“I’m a car guy,” Foster said. “I got a two-car garage and I had three cars, so, I banged on my neighbor’s house and said, ‘Hey, I leave for the winter, can I throw my car in your garage and I’ll pay you?’”

It was 2018 and after a handshake agreement, Foster’s neighbor had a full garage and an easy side gig. Unbeknownst to him, it was the first day of Foster’s new business.

In news-travels-fast Fountain Hills, word got out that Foster found space for his car and was approached by friends at car shows asking if he knew of any more neighbors with space for their bottomless pit of a hobby.

“It got to be to where so many people were asking me that I said, ‘you know what I’ll just create a website,’” Foster said. “All the website does is connect people who are looking for space with people who have extra space, whether it’s a warehouse or a private home parking garage, covered, not covered, they can just connect online and it's all automatic.”

COVID boost

Launched a year before COVID, Foster said Spacefit started out as “gangbusters.” He capitalized on the growing need for space and – as the pandemic hit – a tumultuous time when vehicle owners were hanging up the keys and spending more time indoors.

Spacefit coasted through COVID and Spacefit hosts began popping up throughout Arizona and California.

Simultaneously, Foster encountered a challenge during the pandemic born from social distancing concerns when hosts would remove listings to avoid physical contact with vehicle owners in search of extra space.

Despite the challenges, Foster says his small neighborhood startup has grown to roughly 300 active users, limited only by the number of hosts.

“We do get a lot of people who – like this time of year – are leaving for the summer and they don’t want to leave their car outside,” Foster said, adding that 70% of his users are classic car collectors while the rest are folks who live in an HOA with strict street parking rules, homeowners who are undergoing home/garage renovations or college students who are looking to store their car for two or three months while they head home for the summer.

For hosts, listing space is a simple process of creating an account at Spacefit.com, listing their amenities (climate controlled, carport or covered space, indoor or outdoor, etc.) and setting a monthly price. Once their listing is live, guests can book it for a minimum of one month.

Much like the Airbnb business model, Spacefit is peer-to-peer lodging for vehicles where hosts and guests connect with minimal interference from Spacefit. That said, assistance is readily available by contacting info@spacefit.com.

In Fountain Hills, Foster said hosts are charging anywhere from $125 to $150 per month for space. In Mesa, spaces cost around $250 per month while space in Scottsdale commands somewhere between $350 to $450 per month, with prices dependent on amenities and extras like free outlets to plug in trickle-chargers or hosts who offer to start the vehicles once a month.

“A lot of the homeowners, what they’ve done is they got the keypads on the garage doors, they just give the guests a keypad number and say, ‘come and go as you please,’” Foster said. “It’s up to the host to set the parameters and the price.”

Spacefit charges a flat fee of 25% for each guest-host transaction, which covers guest and host service and support, private payment processing, online listing and availability management.

Grocery money

Sidney Bridges, 73, has been living in Fountain Hills with her husband George since 1983. Before hearing about Spacefit, she advertised her available garage space on Nextdoor, the hyperlocal social networking service for neighborhoods.

Now on Spacefit, Sydney offers up her attached garage with epoxy floors and electrical outlets, and each car owner receives a code to come and go as they please. Sydney’s guests typically own classic cars while many others own “plain ol’ cars” that people need to get off the street in the summer.

Every month, Sydney makes enough to pay for one to two weeks of groceries.

“It’s a nice help for us, with being retired,” Sydney said. “The fact that I don’t have to advertise and ask [guests] for money…their checks are automatically deposited. It’s just a wonderful, wonderful business.”

As vehicle owners clamor for open space and rental spaces dry up, Foster said the perennial challenge he faces is finding more people like Bridges who have extra room to store vehicles.

“Right now, in Fountain Hills, I would say there’s probably one or two spaces available,” Foster said. “Demand far outweighs supply, probably three to one.”