Or for that matter your driveway?

Driveway landlords are popping up across the country as many of you have found out that the strip of tarmac outside your home could be paved with gold!

If you've got a spare parking bay, you can rent it out and make extra cash from doing so!

Companies that match owners of driveways with potential tenants have been booming as commuters realise the benefits of paying a monthly fee for the hire of a parking space.

In London motorists are willing to pay more than £400 a month for use of a space just outside the £8-a-day congestion zone!

The big money is made by those with spare bays in urban or important areas such as Manchester, London, and Birmingham or near to railway stations, airports or big sporting arenas!

So how does it work? Simple really!

• Park-to-let companies promise to make you up to £5,000 a year if you allow a stranger to park in your driveway/parking space without calling in the clampers and tow trucks.

• If you are a parker, you avoid congestion charges, on-street restrictions, vandalism and high parking charges.

• Various time slots are available, with some companies willing to match cars with available driveways or spaces for as little as an hour. Others offer leases on tarmac for several months at a time.

While you've always been able to do it privately, there are now online parking marketplaces which allow you to list for free and tell people how much you want for your space (do compare it to the going rate).

Of course, they don't do such a thing for you for free; the sites mentioned below take a commission cut of your earnings for their trouble.

You can also set restrictions on use if you're likely to need the space yourself during the weekend or at certain times of year. And you may even be able to do it if you leave home early and arrive late everyday.

There are three main sites to choose from:

Parkatmyhouse is an easy-to-use, free-to-register-on site listing a few thousand spaces.

Its main advantage over other sites is flexibility; you can even choose to rent out your bay by the hour, so it needn't be free all the time.

It also takes less of your earnings than youcanpark: 10% of each payment, plus a 25p admin fee. You can also use eBay-esque 'enhanced' listings; though as always you'll need to pay more for it.

Youcanpark offers a very similar service, though takes more commission (15% + VAT).

However, it offers one major advantage: it deals with the whole financial side of things; the person renting your space pays the site, then they send you a cheque each month with your earnings less commission.

Parklet offers a similar service to the other sites and it's free to advertise your space, but if you use them they charge 15% commission of the monthly rental fee. So they only make money, if you make money.

Another option is if you live in London, Brighton, Southampton, Guildford or Cambridge. If you do, you can rent out your parking space to Streetcar.

This is a car club where members can hire cars by the hour from a range of locations. If they use your private parking space, not only do they pay you but you also get a VW Golf parked outside your house which you can hire when you need it!

A nice idea but is it all worth it?

All these sites seem to imply that you can make lots of cash by hiring out your drive/space but this is open to debate!

Logically it makes sense; many parking meters in big cities get paid substantially more than minimum wage; so if you can rent out your space privately there's real cash.

However, a note of caution is that the money you make may not be tax free and rental income must be declared to the tax man!

Also, you need to think about security issues you're allowing someone into a secured area in your home!

So if you think your parking space is in a prime location, why not think about renting it out?