Autonomous vehicles existtoday, and while we are still years away from seeing them rise intototal popularity, real estate owners should start thinking abouthow to adapt their real estate assets to a future with driverlesscars. This technology will completely change the way people live,affecting city planning, development, parking and even signage.Some owners are still figuring out how to integrate ride-sharingzones, they should be looking further ahead.

“From a macro perspective, real estate companies should bethinking about how their real estate will be impacted by theability for tenants, residents and consumers to access spaceswithout having to worry about parking,” JeffBerman, a partner at Camber Creek, tellsGlobeSt.com. “What does that do to layout? Density? Accessibility?For example, widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles may makeindividual car ownership less attractive. For single-family homedevelopers, this could potentially eliminate the need to include agarage for every home.”

Driverless vehicles will have a major impact on real estate, butthe parking will be the most immediate impact. Driverless carscould reduce or even completely eliminate the need for onsiteparking. “Theoretically speaking, a person could be picked up fromtheir home, dropped off at work and their car could return home, orperhaps become an income producing asset for the owner by entering'ride share mode' picking up other passengers before returning topick up the owner from work,” says Berman. “Parking lot densitiesshould also increase as autonomous vehicles will be able to park insmaller spaces. This may reduce the need for urban parking garagesopening up the possibility for redevelopment. Reduced parkingrequirements should be a boon to developers both from a spacemaximization and development cost standpoint.”