Be prepared to spend a pretty penny – up to $750,000 – just to park in an upscale Boston neighborhood.
Beacon Hill, an elite 105-acre neighborhood in downtown Boston, has some of the most exclusive parking options in the country.
The Brimmer Street Garage, located at 70 Brimmer Street in Beacon Hill, features coveted parking spots that regularly sell for half a million dollars. Eager buyers often pay all-cash for their space, given the multimillion-dollar homes in the area.
“If you’re buying a house at this level, adding $500,000 for that parking convenience really isn’t that shocking,” real estate agent Betsy Herald said.
Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood has some of the most exclusive parking options in the country. At Brimmer Street Garage, parking spaces regularly sell for $500,000
A former horse and coach residence, Brimmer Street Garage does not currently have any parking spaces. There is a waiting list for those desperate for a place
Because parking in the historic district is extremely limited, wealthy residents are willing to invest huge sums of money for convenience.
Although it’s difficult to track the sale of parking spaces — they’re often tied to condo or home sales — when sold separately, parking spaces cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Boston real estate agents said high parking prices are symptomatic of the city’s hot and expensive real estate market.
In Beacon Hill, the median listing price for a home is $4.3 million, and about four in five properties are listed for $1 million or more. Former Secretary of State and presidential candidate John Kerry is just one of the neighborhood’s notable residents.
Regarding a parking space, Herald said that “you have to think of it as land.”
The real estate agent told the Boston Globe that “if you take that parking space and multiply it by 20, you get developable land in Boston that’s worth a significant amount of money.”
In 1979, a spot in the garage cost $7,500. Now they’re bringing in over $500,000
Rising parking prices are seen as a corollary of Boston’s booming real estate market. As property values continue to appreciate, parking space values also increase.
Once a humble horse and carriage garage, the Brimmer Street Garage bills itself as “Beacon Hill’s most exclusive place to capture a parking spot.”
The spaces in the garage are sold privately and their owners are required to pay association dues as well as property taxes on the parking spaces.
In addition to the parking space, owners of a space in the Brimmer Street garage also benefit from 24-hour valet parking and, if desired, can have it detailed, cleaned and refueled of gasoline for their extravagant cars.
In 1979, seats in the Brimmer Street Garage cost $7,500. Today, they can bring in more than $500,000 and there is a waiting list to buy a place.
Beacon Hill has some of the most expensive parking in Boston. This is because real estate in the area is very expensive and available parking is limited.
One real estate agent rationalized exorbitant parking prices this way: “If you take that parking spot and multiply it by 20, you get developable land in Boston, which is worth a significant amount of money.”
Herald said the garage allows the ultra-rich to realize their dreams.
“The garage becomes the option for them to make living in their dream neighborhood and their dream home in Beacon Hill a reality.”
In Boston, expensive parking isn’t limited to Beacon Hill. On the outskirts of Back Bay, a couple received a surprising $750,000 offer for their 2022 parking space.
Last year, a simple outdoor parking spot in a Back Bay alley brought in $250,000.
With the price of parking spaces skyrocketing, some real estate agents consider buying one a prudent investment. As long as property values continue to appreciate, the value of parking spaces should also increase.
Beth Dickerson, a real estate agent with Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty, told the Boston Globe that a parking space in Back Bay that she is selling for $350,000 was sold for $275,000 just seven years ago.
Real estate agents said Boston’s wealthiest are willing to shell out huge sums of money for parking because they already pay a high price for their homes.
Herald remembers a time when a parking space behind Newbury Street was sold for $15,000 twenty years ago. That same place is now worth about $400,000.
Herald remembers a phone call she had with her sister, a real estate agent in Portland, Oregon.
Her sister told her she had just sold a beautiful little house overlooking the river for half a million.
Herald responded: “Really, I just sold a parking space for $500,000.”
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