Latest news with #Getaround
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
10 Popular Side Gigs You Can Only Find in Big Cities
Side hustles are everywhere, but some only work where the population (and demand) is dense. Big cities offer a unique environment for side hustle opportunities that don't exist in small towns or rural areas. Read More: Find Out: Here are 10 side gigs that are especially profitable when you're based in a major city. While you can technically drive for Uber or Lyft in any town, it's only in cities where this gig becomes truly profitable. The constant flow of people, tourists, and commuters means more frequent ride requests and shorter wait times between trips. Surge pricing during events, rush hour or weekends can also boost earnings. For example, according to Indeed, drivers in San Francisco can earn an average of $26 per hour. Busy urban professionals often outsource house cleaning and high-rise apartments, short-term rentals, and Airbnbs means constant demand. If you're reliable and detail-oriented, you can build a recurring client base or specialize in quick-turn services for Airbnb hosts. In cities like New York or Los Angeles, experienced cleaners can charge $100 or more per job. Apartment living and long work hours make it tough for pet owners to meet their dogs' needs. That's where you come in. Platforms like Rover and Wag! connect dog walkers and sitters with local pet owners. In cities, you can walk multiple dogs at once on short loops and offer daycare services for those working 9 to 5. The more densely packed the neighborhood, the more clients you can fit into your day. Discover Next: Tourists visiting big cities don't want to lug everything through airports. Thankfully, because of modern technology, they can turn to local providers through BabyQuip. The company lets you rent strollers, cribs, high chairs, and other baby gear to traveling families. If you live in a destination city, you can earn passive income by storing a few quality items at home and delivering them to nearby hotels or vacation rentals. In most urban areas, people don't have access to driveways or hoses, which means they can't wash their own car even if they want to. Mobile detailing services that come to office buildings, apartment garages, or curbsides are in demand. Rideshare drivers especially need regular cleanings to maintain their rating, and busy professionals are often willing to pay a premium for convenience. In cities where owning a car is expensive or unnecessary, many people still occasionally need one. If you have a vehicle you're not using every day, you can rent it out on Turo or Getaround. You can even turn it into a business by building a fleet. In places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Toronto, vehicle hosts often report full bookings and healthy returns, especially on weekends. When you live in a walk-up apartment or don't own a power drill, simple tasks become a headache. That's why TaskRabbit thrives in big cities. People will pay you to assemble furniture, mount TVs, carry groceries, move boxes, or run errands. These one-off gigs are especially lucrative if you live near affluent neighbourhoods or new condo developments. Tourism-heavy cities offer a great opportunity to turn your knowledge of local culture, food, or history into a paid experience. Whether it's a street art tour, a dumpling-making class, or a nighttime photography walk, platforms like Airbnb Experiences and GetYourGuide make it easy to get started. No tour guide license is needed in many places, and a well-reviewed experience can attract a steady stream of bookings. In dense cities, delivery gigs are faster and more efficient. Shorter distances, more restaurants per square mile, and higher order volume let you complete multiple deliveries per hour. Plus, many customers don't have cars and rely on delivery. Add in the potential for stacked orders and tips, and this side gig becomes far more profitable than in spread-out towns. Space is at a premium in major cities. If you have an unused parking spot, basement nook, or storage closet, you can list it on platforms like Neighbor or Spacer. Urban renters are often willing to pay top dollar for just a few extra square feet. This is one of the easiest passive-income side hustles around, especially if you live near downtown or a major event venue. City life comes with its own set of challenges, but it also creates unique money-making opportunities. If you live in a large metro area and want to earn extra income, these gigs are worth exploring. Just remember: what works in New York, Toronto, or LA might not work in a small town, and that's exactly why these side hustles exist. More From GOBankingRates Surprising Items People Are Stocking Up On Before Tariff Pains Hit: Is It Smart? The Most Expensive Disney Merchandise Ever Sold -- and Who's Buying It 10 Genius Things Warren Buffett Says To Do With Your Money Source: Indeed, Driver Salaries Lazy Susans Cleaning, Cleaning Pricing in NYC This article originally appeared on 10 Popular Side Gigs You Can Only Find in Big Cities Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
The Guardian
15-03-2025
- Automotive
- The Guardian
Low mileage, several careful renters … will car-sharing ever really get going?
Spotify did it for music. Netflix did it for films. For people in big cities, the app economy promised to do the same for cars: making a life without ownership of a couple of tonnes of metal possible. Businesses such as Zipcar, Enterprise Car Club and Share Now offer app-based car rental by the hour, while the likes of Hiyacar, Turo and Getaround have opened up the ability to rent neighbours' cars. During the Covid pandemic – and the easy money bubble – it seemed their time had come. Yet there are signs the momentum is slowing. San Francisco-based Turo last month abandoned plans to float on the stock market. Getaround, based in the same city, announced it was shutting down its US car-sharing operations to focus on Europe. And the valuation of the US's Zipcar, the world's biggest car-sharing company, was quietly downgraded this month by its owner, Avis Budget. This reporter's household is one of the 42% in London without a car. The public transport network in the capital has been good enough for long enough that tiresome people who insist owning a car is pointless in London were once the butt of a joke in the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead back in 2004. That film was made four years after Zipcar was founded and three years before Apple's iPhone paved the way for the mobility app revolution. Now there are enough shared cars in London to give residents several nearby options for electric cars to pop to the shops or vans for house moves. Izzy Romilly, the sustainable transport manager for the green group Possible, has campaigned for a reduction in car use in cities, particularly by replacing shorter journeys with walking or cycling. 'It can be quite daunting to give up your car,' she says, but adds that people in cities who give up car ownership experience 'unexpected benefits' including better health and less stress as they walk or cycle more. However, a bit of flexibility is sometimes needed to walk 10 minutes in the rain to pick up a vehicle. Being in a 'dink' household – double income, no kids – undoubtedly helps. Colleagues with children laugh knowingly at declarations that car ownership is a thing of the past: determined car-lessness can falter when two children need to go to gymnastics on a chilly Saturday. Cars spend about 95% of their lives sitting still, while also taking up space worth £172bn in London alone. Car sharing allows those assets to be used more efficiently, getting greater use out of every vehicle and parking space. More efficient usage of cars would mean fewer vehicles needed overall. That would reduce the carbon emissions associated with auto manufacturing, which are set to increase as the world shifts to electric cars – although that switch will slash the much larger emissions from driving. Efficiency also means cost savings for users. British users of car shares can save thousands of pounds compared with buying a new vehicle, according to CoMoUK, a charity focused on increasing 'collaborative mobility'. The problem has been making the services profitable. Car-sharing companies have struggled with rising costs, including for insurance and from councils, which have raised parking permit fees. 'It's quite tough out there,' says Richard Dilks, CoMoUK's chief executive. Yet there is still evidence that the number of people opting for car-sharing services is rising. User figures in the UK rose from 354,000 in 2019 to 873,000 last September. In France, the number of car-share journeys was 45% higher in January than the same point two years earlier, according to government figures. 'There's loads of challenges on the supply side, but we have to balance it on the demand side,'says Dilks. 'That remains strong.' Owning a vehicle has been a rite of passage – and a staple of teen movies – in wealthy countries such as the UK and US for decades. During the pandemic, though, it appeared that the long march of car ownership had halted. The 2020-22 period bucked the trend of half a century in which the proportion of UK car-owning households rose from 52% in 1971 to 78% in 2022, according to the National Centre for Social Research. However, that trend snapped back during 2023. Still, carmakers are looking beyond traditional vehicle ownership. The owner of Fiat and Peugeot, Stellantis, owns shared car service Free2move, while Renault has Mobilize, a unit also experimenting with car sharing and rentals. JLR, the British manufacturer of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, has set up two services to cater to people who want a luxury car without having to worry about going to a dealership – let alone insurance, servicing or roadside assistance cover. Rental periods range from a few hours or days under one service, The Out, to between three and 18 months with another, Pivotal. A Range Rover, for example, costs nearly £700 for a weekend, or north of £2,000 for a month. Jasdeep Sawhney, the managing director of InMotion Ventures, JLR's startup investment arm, says the services exemplify the shift from the 'ownership economy' to the 'consumption economy' since the pandemic. 'There's a whole cohort of younger customers – young and wealthy, of course – who don't want to own big things in their lives,' Sawhney says. 'Their lifestyles are very flexible. They travel a lot. These customers are not buying vehicles.' The Observer tried JLR's service, receiving an enormous – and, on London's tight streets, sometimes awkward – Range Rover delivered to the door and picked up a few days later. The rental highlighted one of the potential pitfalls of non-ownership, when the borrowed wheels scraped on the kerb in the automated parking mode – a manoeuvre that would prove costly for a paying renter. JLR's motivation is emphatically not to reduce ownership: car companies want more people to buy their vehicles. JLR's side-hustle rental services help it accrue revenues from people on average 20 years younger than the company's usual customers. Some renters have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on Pivotal over three years – more than enough to buy a £123,000 Range Rover outright. Yet the enthusiastic reception for the services, which are already generating cash, suggests that people are becoming more comfortable in using cars as a service, rather than buying them as a product. There are opportunities at the other end of the scale of non-ownership too. France's BlaBlaCar is the champion of covoiturage, or carpooling. It has found success in France and Spain, where public transport is good from city to city but worse outside that. But it is growing fastest now in Brazil and India, poorer countries where public transport is severely lacking. 'There is a really strong case for accelerating on car sharing,' says Dilks, particularly to meet carbon reduction targets. 'Car clubs are only part of the solution – but they are [still] part of it.'
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
South Carolinians are renting out their cars to boost their income
Peer-to-peer car sharing has been around for more than a decade but has recently garnered legislative attention in South Carolina. (Photo provided by Turo) When Marion Platt's youngest son left home to attend music school in Manhattan, the Charleston native was left with a Kia Soul taking up space in the family's driveway. So he decided to put it to use. Now, the boxy, kale green car is one of more than 200 vehicles in South Carolina — ranging from luxury sports cars to residents' daily drivers — available for rent on the car sharing mobile application Turo. 'Right when I put it on the platform I started getting requests,' Platt said. And the income Platt makes from renting the car helps pay for his son's college education. In the same vein as renting out your house or a spare bedroom on Airbnb for a few days, users can rent someone's private vehicle or rent out their own to others to earn some extra cash. The practice known as peer-to-peer car sharing has been around for more than a decade but is garnering more attention from South Carolina's state leaders. Sen. Wes Climer introduced legislation, both in 2023 and in the current legislative session, that sets insurance requirements and other safety measures. The Rock Hill Republican said the impetus behind the bill is actually to grow — not control — the industry, so South Carolinians such as Platt can earn income from it. 'This industry is relatively new, and it is currently operating in South Carolina, and it is currently operating in sort of a wild west type environment where a lot of questions around liability, questions around regulation, remain unanswered … We have offered this bill to give them sort of guard rails,' Climer said when explaining the bill on the Senate floor last week. 'Uncertainty has been an inhibitor in this case,' Climer later told the SC Daily Gazette. Turo has about 350,000 active vehicle listings worldwide and 3.5 million active users, according to a federal securities filing. On the other hand, a competing car sharing company called Getaround, announced last month it was shutting down operations in the U.S. while staying operational in Europe. Climer expects a vote on the bill this week. If it ultimately passes in the Senate, it still must go through vetting in the House. Meanwhile, the industry is in favor of the measure as it currently stands. Turo, the world's largest car sharing platform, actually provided input to the National Council of Insurance Legislators, said Turo spokeswoman Catherine Mejia. The organization drafted the legislation Climer used to model his bill. Mejia said 28 other states have enacted similar statutes. 'We don't believe it's negative in any way,' she said. That's because Turo has worked for years putting protections in place for both car owners and car renters, Mejia said. The company wants to ensure any new companies that may develop abide by the same rules, she said. Namely, the company carries liability insurance for all cars rented through its application, Mejia said. Turo also tracks safety recalls on vehicles and makes sure those with an outstanding issue can't be rented. And the company reportedly keeps drivers' and owners' information on file, providing that information to law enforcement and insurance companies in the case of an accident so claims are processed quickly. All of this would be required under Climer's proposed legislation. Mejia said Turo then takes things a step further. The company works with airports to make sure users don't disrupt operations. It has permits for airports in Charleston, Columbia and Greenville. It also runs background checks on each person who rents from them. But safety concerns have been an issue. Turo made national headlines in January after the drivers of the Ford truck that plowed through a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas both used the platform to rent the vehicles. The company, in a statement following the tragedies, offered condolences to the victims' families. Turo officials said they screened both drivers but neither had a criminal background that flagged them as potentially dangerous. Sen. Darrell Jackson said he supports the care share concept. He sees it as a popular option for college students without a vehicle or a temporary solution for people in rural areas where there's no public transportation or ride-sharing options. And for vehicle owners, 'this allows everyday citizens to actually use a vehicle to make a little extra money on the side.' 'This is something so different and could be a gamechanger in that industry,' the Hopkins Democrat said. Jackson was at first concerned the legislation may have been a move by the insurance and rental car industry trying to 'get out in front of it' before it really gets popular. 'A lot of people aren't aware of it, but they're going to be,' he said. While on a business trip in Phoenix, Mike McCurdy chose to rent a Jeep Wrangler through Turo so he could take the top off and enjoy the beautiful weather while driving between meetings. He liked that he was able to research it, read reviews from other users, and he was guaranteed to get that exact vehicle rather than being assigned a vehicle at random from a traditional rental car company fleet. McCurdy began using the app every time he traveled. He said it also worked well when he was researching vehicles that he wanted to purchase. Rather than going straight to the dealership for a test drive, he'd rent a similar make and model from someone on Turo. It gave him a few days to test out how the vehicle would handle without the pressure of a salesman riding along in the passenger seat. Working in digital marketing, McCurdy said he's long been open to different technologies and ideas, 'not stuck in the mindset of it's always been done this way. You can innovate.' Eventually, the McCurdy's got into the business for themselves. The couple lives in the Nexton mega neighborhood near the Charleston suburb of Summerville. In that community, everything they need — stores, restaurants, schools — are within walking distance. And because they both work from home, they don't always need a car. They started with one vehicle on Turo. Now they have four, renting them out largely to families coming to Charleston on vacation. In addition to the vehicles, the McCurdy's offer restaurant and sightseeing recommendations to their customers. And they throw in extras, such as beach chairs, umbrellas, coolers, child safety seats and strollers. With Turo they've gone from the expense of a monthly car payment to having an added source of income. Platt, too, mostly rents his vehicle to people visiting the Holy City, though he has local customers, too. Sometimes he rents to students at the College of Charleston who need a car to get home to Columbia or Greenville for the weekend. Other times it might be an elderly resident living in an apartment near downtown who only needs a vehicle on occasion to run errands. Having worked as a pastor for decades, Platt views it as part of 'God's call to show hospitality' as well as a business venture. When he had a customer fly into Charleston and rent the car so they could drive to Orangeburg for a family member's funeral he prayed with them, trying to offer comfort. Platt said car sharing has largely been a positive experience. Though there have been times when a renter has returned the car in less than stellar condition. 'Like when someone spills Chick-fil-A sauce on the seat, that's just part of it,' he said. 'I don't find it terribly bothersome. I just consider it part of my ministry.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Axios
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Boston's Great Scott set to reopen as mixed-use project
The Great Scott is coming back. Developers filed new plans for the mixed-use building in Lower Allston that will be home to the revived music venue and dozens of apartments. Why it matters: For more than four decades, Great Scott was a legendary venue for local acts and national tours of artists on the brink of making it big. Superstars like Charli XCX and Phoebe Bridgers appeared there early in their careers, and local acts like Hallelujah the Hills and The Shills played regularly while the 'Gansett and PBR flowed like water. The big picture: Along with resurrecting the beloved venue, the development increases the land use at a central Allston intersection a block from the old site by replacing the current low-rise structures with a multistory mixed-use building. Zoom in: The project brings together the owner of the Great Scott and O'Brien's brands, which developed the popular Raffles hotel in the Back Bay and operates Vanyaland, one of the area's top music websites. By the numbers: 300-person capacity for the new Great Scott club. The old club on Beacon Street held 240. 105-foot building height at the corner of Harvard Avenue and Cambridge Street. 139 residential units in 97,300 square feet of total space. Zero resident parking spaces. The developers are encouraging residents to use bikes or public transit. Three car-sharing parking spaces for a program like ZipCar or Getaround. The details: The new building is set to relocate the existing O'Brien's Pub, the 75-person barroom venue that absorbed some of the Allston rock scene when the original Great Scott closed in 2020. The development team says O'Brien's will stay open during construction. Also back will be Great Scott's signature green awning that for years invited patrons in to hand cash over at the door, get their hand stamped and have a good time in the tight-quartered club. Between the lines: The plan secured regulatory approval from the Boston Licensing Board in August. The board also okayed the transfer of O'Brien's liquor license to the new site. Inside: Plans call for "small, economically efficient" apartments with acoustic barriers to keep the sound from the stage to a minimum. Two retail or restaurant spaces will be on the ground floor alongside the two clubs. The bottom line: The project is a win for local music lovers still mourning the loss of the old club and for proponents of denser, car-free housing in Lower Allston. There's no reopening date set, but developers expect an 18-month construction phase.
