‘Crazy’ HK$6 million price for parking space pushes Mercedes-Benz collector out of Hong Kong
Hong Kong car collector ships classics to California to save storage costs as city’s average parking space prices rocket to about US$286,668, a more than sixfold increase since 2006
Spare a thought for Hong Kong’s beleaguered car owners.
The market for parking spaces is hotter than ever as a single spot in a luxury development in Kowloon’s Ho Man Tin district changed hands for a record HK$6 million (US$765,000).
“It’s crazy,” says Darrin Woo, a classic car collector who shipped his 1968 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman limo and a fiery red 1957 Fiat Abarth to California to save money on storage. “Buy a space? No way. I could buy five cars for that much.”
The average parking space now goes for about HK$2.25 million, a more than sixfold increase since 2006. That makes the city’s housing market, the world’s least affordable, look tame by comparison. Home prices increased a mere 3.4 times over the same period. In the first half of this year, about HK$10.3 billion-worth of spaces changed hands, up from HK$6.58 billion in the same period a year earlier, according to Midland Realty Services.
Blaming Developers
Car owners in London and New York face similar problems. In Manhattan, spaces at a luxury condo at 42 Crosby Street in Soho were advertised for US$1 million, according to The New York Times. A property agent who handles sales for the property declined to comment.
“Buy a space? No way. I could buy five cars for that much”
Hong Kong developers are partly to blame. They make more money building flats than garages, so the ratio of parking spots to housing units has declined, says Denis Ma, head of Hong Kong research at consulting firm Jones Lang LaSalle.