Cost For Parking: $225,000
Why You Shouldn’t Own A Car In NYC
In Houston, $225,000 will buy a three-bedroom house with a game room, den, in-ground pool and hot tub. In Manhattan, it will buy a parking space. No windows, no view. No walls. While real estate in much of the country languishes, property in Manhattan continues to escalate in price, and that includes parking spaces. Some buyers do not even own cars, but grab the spaces as investments, renting them out to cover their costs. Spaces are in such demand that there are waiting lists of buyers. Eight people are hoping for the chance to buy one of five private parking spaces for $225,000 in the basement of 246 West 17th Street. The developer, meanwhile, is seeking city approval to add four more spots.For developers in New York, parking is the highest and best use for below-grade space and fetches about the same price per square foot as actual living space, which costs much more to develop. The average parking space costs $165,019, or $1,100 per square foot, close to the average apartment price of $1,107 per square foot. Those are averages, of course. A $200,000 parking space is about $1,333 per square foot.
Parking in new developments is selling for twice what it was five years ago. Although spaces in prime sections of Manhattan are the most expensive, even those in open lots and in garages in Brooklyn, Queens, Riverdale and Harlem are close to $50,000, although at least one new Brooklyn development is asking $125,000. In other densely packed cities where space and parking are at premium, parking spaces in condos also tend to trade at high prices. In Boston, they can sell for as much as $175,000, and they go for as much as $75,000 in Chicago. But in other cities, like Los Angeles and Dallas, most condos include parking in their prices.
