$565k for 34 spaces by a hospital, and the income doesn't justify it

I want income without a second job and this is the shape I keep getting shown. 3.4% with a shovel attached. Even at his $130 fantasy it's low fives, and you're the one emptying the honor box in February. If the answer is that the real return arrives when someone buys the dirt in year nine, that isn't income, and I'd want to be clear with myself about which thing I'm buying before I wire anything.

For comparison, every unit in my buildings costs me roughly a full month of rent a year in surprises. Your version of that is the surface. When you say the reserve is $1,500 and the pavement needs work in five years, get an actual quote on a mill and overlay for 0.31 acres, not a sealcoat quote. I've seen those numbers come back at multiples of what the owner assumed, and on a lot with 34 spaces there's no other income line to absorb it.

Two things before you get to price. First, confirm with the city whether commercial parking is a permitted use on that parcel as of right or whether it's a legal nonconforming use carried over from decades ago. Those work differently, and in some places a nonconforming use can lapse if operation stops for a set period, which matters if you ever fence it up for a season. Zoning language varies by municipality, so read the actual ordinance text rather than a summary.

Second, for land value, pull the assessor's land-only value for the parcel and for the nearest sold comparables, then note that a dozen or so states don't make sale prices public at all, so depending where you are the assessor page may be all you get. If your state is one of those, you'll need a broker or an appraiser who works that submarket to give you a land number. That is the number that decides this deal, and paying for one appraisal is cheap against $565k.

The way I'd frame it: what does it cost you to hold the dirt for ten years, and does the parking cover that? At $19,500 NOI against taxes, insurance and snow already deducted, you're carried, with a bit left. That's a land bank that pays for its own taxes, which is more than most raw land does. Whether the dirt is worth $565k today is still the whole question, and the seller's patient tower story is his to prove, not yours to assume. If he's right, the buyer of the tower's overflow parking is also a possibility, and that's a different conversation than $130 permits.

In my markets a lot like this trades near nothing because there's free curb parking everywhere and nobody pays $95 to walk half a block. Your whole thesis is scarcity created by a hospital. So I'd spend a Tuesday morning at 7am counting cars on the street within three blocks. If there's open free curb within a two minute walk, the $130 never happens.