What some people might pay for a sprawling four-bedroom house in many parts of the country is what some Brooklynresidents are now willing to pay for a single parking space.
A parking spot is reportedly for sale at the 845 Union Street garage in Park Slope for $300,000. The buyer would also be responsible for $240 in monthly maintenance fees and $51 in monthly taxes, according to DNAinfo. But like any New York City real estate purchase, the investment could be well worth it, as a space in the same garage went for $80,000 four years ago. “That’s more than what my parents paid for their house,” area resident Julie Hollartold NBC4.
Some neighborhood localssay they wouldn’t balk at buying a high-priced parking spot. They say it’s been increasingly difficult to find parking as developers have torn down garages for new residential buildings. Parking garage spots have jumped in price.
Julia Kite, of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, toldNBC4 that the city needs to step in with a residential parking system, likening the pricing surge to how investors have taken to the city’s luxury home market in recent years.
“When a spot in Park Slope costs the same amount as a condo in another part of Brooklyn, then we are really in a situation where parking spaces are not being treated for their intended purpose,” she said. “They are really becoming an investment opportunities, and it’s a shame because it robs people who live in Park Slope of a place to keep their car, and we think it might be time for the city to institute some kind of residential parking system.”
