$332,000 For A Single-Car Garage Is Urban Sprawl In Action

Photo: realestate.com.au

A single-car garage in Sydney, Australia, recently sold for 500,000 Australian dollars, or $332,000. Yes, it’s just a garage. The sky-high prices reflect the high demand for parking in desirable inner-city areas and a lack of standalone garages. A local realtor told Yahoo Finance that up to 12 percent of a property’s value is tied to parking. The leases to many Sydney apartments come with separate garage accommodations nearby.

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They are accounts of property owners buying apartments to rent out and keeping the garage for themselves. It’s also possible for the garage and apartment to have separate titles, which is how we ended up with this scenario. Davide Talone, the realtor behind the sale, told Financial Review:

“I thought $500k would be achievable. But we had to put a process in place to get to that number. We got to that number through competition.”

“I would have door knocked around 50 units. And would have door knocked about four streets which have anywhere between 20 and 50 houses in them. The ones I couldn’t get a face-to-face conversation with I revisited, door knocked a second time and left a letter saying: “We’ve tried to contact you. This is what we’re selling, if interested, please get in contact.”

“There were 10 people who were interested initially, but when we showed them the price, it boiled down to four.”

Several six-figure garages have been sold in Sydney over the past few years, and the trend doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. Talone noted that his buyer was a car enthusiast, but others wanted a garage simply to increase the value of their home.

There’s high-priced parking in other parts of the world, but there’s typically an ultra-luxury experience tied to it. In New York City, there are spots in automated parking structures beneath multi-million-dollar high rises. The cost can range from $300,000 to $600,000. It’s a more traditional affair for parking in Hong Kong, where a $1.3 million parking spot comes with spa access and bottle service. It makes shelling out for parking actually worth your while.