FOR MOST PEOPLE paying the rent or mortgage is enough to worry about.
But if you find yourself commuting into a city on a daily basis, you probably have to pay for somewhere to park your car.
While this can be done on a day-to-day basis, some people chose to buy a parking space or rent one on a long term basis – something that might not come cheaply.
Shock stories appear in the media occasionally showing parking spaces in major cities to be as costly as liveable property.
So exactly how much can you expect to dish out in Ireland on a city-centre spot?
Big ticket prices
In October last year a block of 24 parking spaces at Grand Canal Hotel in Dublin sold for €465,000.
And in February, solicitors Arthur Cox paid out the hefty sum of €1.7 million for 28 spaces just off of St Stephen’s Green; which works out at €60,700 for each individual space.
Another big sale took place when a block of 150 parking spaces on Grand Canal Dock went for €3.25 million. The location of the car park gives users prime access to the Bord Gáis Energy theatre.
Prices in some international cities far outstrip what you might expect to pay in Dublin.
Last year, parking spaces underneath a New York apartment block went on sale for more than a $1 million (€890,000). In London last year the UK’s most expensive parking space sold for £400,000 (€550,000).
While these figures are certainly eye-catching – they do not give a fair representation of city-centre parking in Ireland.
Fairer pricing
As Liam Keilthy from Parking Consultants Ltd explains, “there is no active market in the sale of car parking spaces really. The only bits you get are occasional big sales.”
There is however a pretty active market in terms of spaces for rent. You’ll see the variations for prices being asked for spaces, both in Dublin and across the country.
In Dublin a month’s rental on a parking space in the centre of the city ranges between around €150 and €250. While not exactly cheap, it compares favourably with purchasing space on a daily basis – something that will cost you between €1.60 and €2.90 an hour in Dublin.
For Keilthy, the big prices being paid out for spaces in Dublin is simply a matter of supply and demand for the businesses concerned.
“We always park to do something else. We don’t just park for the sake of parking. If you have a shopping centre or a theatre – it is the activity and the success of the activity that drives demand,” he said.
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