The most expensive parking spaces in the world

September 26, 2013

$465,000 for a parking space might seem a ridiculous price, but it is exactly what a seller recently asked for in London, UK. Measuring just 11 feet by 12 feet, this space is located in Hyde Park Gardens, near Buckingham Palace. Moreover, it is available only for a lease period of 91 years.

Similar sticker shocks have been reported closer home. In Boston, two residential parking spaces were auctioned for $560,000. San Francisco saw an 8 by 12 foot parking space sold for $82,000 in the South Beach neighborhood.

A $465,000 spot in London. Image by Kay & Co.

Some parking spaces more expensive than apartments

Last year, a New York parking space’s asking price soared to a million dollars for the first time. Another of the world’s most expensive parking spaces is in Hong Kong, at $640,000. That works out to $5000 per square foot. Residential property prices in Hong Kong are much less in comparison- $1,300 for one square foot of real estate, on average.

Let’s see whether this asymmetry is echoed in other cities with record breaking parking space prices. The $465,000 London parking space works out to around $3500 per square foot. That’s almost as much as you would pay per square foot for property, at $3890. How do U.S. prices stack up? The million-dollar New York parking space works out to $3600 per square foot. That’s triple the average square foot cost for real estate there, at $1,323. The tandem parking spaces in Boston that are sold for $560,000 cost $1,800 per square foot. In sharp contrast, the average price per square foot for a home in Boston is just $456. Lastly, let’s look at prices in San Francisco. The $82,000 parking spot means a $854 per square foot cost. This is still more than the average price per square foot of real estate there, at $724.

Why are parking spaces getting expensive?

With expensive parking spaces in high-end areas, parking space prices are soaring across the globe. The convenience of getting to park close to your residence is the main reason for this escalation. “It’s really simple economics — the laws of supply and demand. In the U.S. the parking world is a tale of two worlds,” says James Cook, U.S. director of research at Colliers International, a real estate services company. These two worlds are the country’s big urban areas, “then the rest of the U.S.” Cook says “there’s no lack of parking in the rest of the nation.”

The San Francisco parking spots are in a neighborhood which “is super affluent, trendy, expensive and one of the most difficult places to find a parking spot in North America,” he continues. Looking at the parking rates in London -$60 for 24 hours in Central London and a starting rate of $123 for parking fines there, the $465,000 parking space deal looks cheap. If a daily rate is calculated over the course of 91 years, it comes out to be $14.25.