I had a parking problem.

Or at least I had the possibility of one.

My coliving property could accommodate several vehicles, but shared housing teaches you quickly that physical capacity and comfortable capacity aren't always identical.

I could have treated parking as a fixed constraint.

Instead, I changed the customer.

One of my room listings became what I thought of as a digital-nomad unit. A houseguest who didn't bring a car could receive a discount.

Motorcycles, bicycles and similar alternatives weren't the problem. The objective was simply to reduce the number of full-sized vehicles competing for the property's parking capacity.

It worked.

The listing attracted both domestic and international interest and became an effective source of inquiries.

I love this example because the solution wasn't:

Build more parking.

It was:

Who values this room but doesn't require the resource I'm short on?

That's a very different operating question.

Real estate investors naturally think about changing properties.

Add a bedroom.

Build a bathroom.

Expand a driveway.

Install another appliance.

Sometimes that's exactly the right answer.

But physical changes cost money.

Before spending it, ask whether positioning, pricing, or customer segmentation can solve the same problem.

Maybe a smaller room isn't an inferior room. Maybe it is a lower-priced option for someone who values location more than square footage.

Maybe limited parking isn't universally negative. Maybe the property is particularly attractive to someone arriving without a vehicle.

Maybe a feature that prevents one customer from choosing you is irrelevant to another.

The property doesn't have to be perfect for everyone.

It has to be compelling to enough of the right people.

Constraints can force useful creativity because they make you identify what you're actually selling.

I wasn't selling parking.

I was selling attainable, furnished housing in a useful location.

Once I separated those two things, the constraint became considerably easier to manage.

Before spending money to eliminate every weakness in a property, ask another question:

Is there a customer for whom this isn't a weakness at all?