Frankie Muniz made a fortune as the teenage star of Malcolm in the Middle, but one of his most intriguing business decisions had nothing to do with Hollywood. It involved buying parking lots in downtown Los Angeles and collecting money from drivers.

There is, however, a twist to the story. Although Muniz has described the investments as successful, he also revealed that he sold the properties in 2006, long before the surrounding neighbourhood completed its transformation into a major entertainment district.

How Frankie Muniz discovered the parking lot business

During an April 17, 2026 episode of the Teen Beat podcast, Muniz explained that the idea came from attending Los Angeles Clippers basketball games when he was around 17 or 18.

At the time, the area surrounding the Staples Center, now known as Crypto.com Arena, contained numerous open parking lots. Muniz noticed that drivers were routinely paying around $10 to $15 to leave their cars during games.

What caught his attention was the apparent simplicity of the operation. An attendant could collect payments throughout the day, while the property itself appeared to require relatively little maintenance.

Rather than simply admiring the business model, Muniz decided to purchase several parking lots in the area.

He later acknowledged that the decision was hardly the product of an elaborate financial strategy. In fact, he described the investment as something that happened almost accidentally.

Muniz said the properties performed very well, although he did not disclose their purchase prices, operating profits or eventual sale proceeds during the podcast conversation.

Why selling the parking lots in 2006 changed everything

The most interesting part of Muniz's property story might be what happened after he stopped owning the land.

In a 2022 conversation featured on Steve-O's Wild Ride!, the actor said that he had sold his downtown Los Angeles parking lots in 2006.

He also suggested that the properties could have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars had he retained them. That was Muniz's retrospective estimate, however, rather than an independently verified valuation.

The timing is particularly interesting when compared with the area's subsequent development.

According to the official history of L.A. LIVE, the entertainment district surrounding the arena began opening in phases during late 2007 and early 2008. Further additions followed, including restaurants, entertainment venues, the GRAMMY Museum and major hotels, with the final phase completed in 2010.

Muniz had therefore exited his parking investments before much of that development was completed.

That does not establish how much the properties would be worth today, or how much additional profit he might have earned by keeping them. Such calculations would require details about the individual sites, ownership arrangements and subsequent property transactions.

Muniz admits not every investment worked out

Despite the success of his parking lots, Muniz has pushed back against the idea that he possesses some extraordinary talent for predicting profitable investments.

During the same April 2026 podcast appearance, he explained that he had also bought and sold numerous residential properties, with decidedly mixed results.

Some transactions made money, while others resulted in substantial losses. He said many of his decisions came from acting on instinct rather than carefully constructed investment plans.

That makes his parking lot story more interesting than a straightforward tale of a former child star discovering an effortless source of wealth.

Muniz spotted a business opportunity that worked for him, but sold the properties years before the surrounding district reached its later scale. His account illustrates both the value of recognising an opportunity early and the uncertainty of knowing when to walk away from it.