Tuesday 6th November 2012

£50K for a parking space

Next time you moan about pay and display be glad you don't live in Cornwall

---

Normally when you see car parking spaces selling for crazy prices, they're in London. These five being offered for auction with a guide of £50,000 each are in St Ives, Cornwall.

You might think the auctioneer is having a laugh, but the firm selling them, Bradleys, has already turned out an offer of £100,000 for two of them. "We're waiting because we're hoping we might get even more," St Ives branch manager John Harvey told the Cornishman newspaper.

£90K for a space on Park Lane

We admire the entrepreneurial spirit behind their development. Previous owners of an adjoining house in this posh seaside town tried and failed to get planning permission for a two-storey house on the plot. So the new owners came up with this wheeze. St Ives might not be London but it does attract rich second homers who like the squashed-against-a-hill charm of the place but find many of the desirable homes don't come with parking.

Of course London is still home to bonkers prices for spaces. Top of the list on a Foxton search was £87,500 for 9sq m to call your own in an underground car park on Park Lane, just a bit more than this three-bedroom terraced house in Middlesborough.

This goes both ways of course - if you've a nice parking space that doesn't get used you can sell, or less drastically, rent it out through a website such as parkatmyhouse.com

Even if you do use your parking space, perhaps you shouldn't. As PHer ghibbett found out last year when insuring his BMW M3, the premium was cheaper when parked on the street compared on his driveway or in his garage. So rent out your space, put your P&J on the street and say hello to cheaper motoring. Or just be glad if you don't live a place where parking's so insanely competitive.

 

[mr2j]

All the dealers round my way park there M3s on the street - I guess nobody would dare touch them anyway.

[struttob]

Anybody who has tried (usually in vain) to park in St Ives will have some sympathy with this situation.

[Munich]

Not quite on the same level, but I have just paid 25,000€ for a underground parking space here in Munich. Baring in mind that anything property related is always massively more expensive in the UK, 50,000 GBP seems like a bargain....

[Greg 172]

That's £50k plus a buyers premium for the estate agent of £5k (plus tax). Easiest money ever for an estate agent?

[waterwonder]

The buyers fee alone is £5k + VAT according to the link. I don't know the place but for that sort of money i think i'd buy/rent a lockup outside the town put a nice car in it and then cycle/moped/taxi to my house.

[wab172uk]

Greedy sellers.

More money than sense buyers.

[ndj]

Proof, if needed, that this country has gone absolutely barking mad!

We'll all be paying £2 a litre soon and considering that the norm.

Will the last one out please switch the lights off?

[The Jolly Todger]

ndj said:

Proof, if needed, that this country has gone absolutely barking mad!

We'll all be paying £2 a litre soon and considering that the norm.

Will the last one out please switch the lights off?

Don't go, the Daily Mail need all the readers it can get.

[C.A.R.]

Visited St Ives last year, parked miles away from the sea front in a car park which had 'rubble' as a surface and paid a fortune for the privelege!

But it is a beautiful place so can see the justification for those prices. Beware of the seaguls though, they're trained ninja's!

[mat205125]

wab172uk said:

Greedy sellers.

More money than sense buyers.

I agree to an extent with the latter comment, but the former is just nonsense.

If someone owns something that a person is willing to pay £X for, why is it considered "greedy" for them not to price their belongings at £X, and wait for that person to come along and buy it.

[Justayellowbadge]

Should that be 'turned down' the offer?

[M@1975]

Bargain.

[custardkid]

That 3 bed house has no parking!


Garages often go for £50k plus in Bristol

[adzpz]

Speaking as someone who lives in west Cornwall there are better seaside towns to live in around here that don't attract the silly premiums and are less spoilt by tourism. Anyone who lives in Cornwall will tell you that St Ives is probably one of the last places you would choose to actually live.

[davidsc]

I live just outside St Ives and I wouldn't want to live there, I rarely even visit there.

I think it's stupidly overated and the houses are crap unless you have £400k+ to spend. Plenty of nicer beaches down this end which don't get so overrun with clueless holiday makers.

£50k for a space is crackers, specially as it is unlikely it will even be near your gaff!

[peterattheboro]

Middlesbrough!

[Dave Hedgehog]

200k for a space in london

http://swns.com/news/200000-for-britains-most-expe...

[Robert1983]

'As PHer ghibbett found out last year when insuring his BMW M3, the premium was cheaper when parked on the street compared on his driveway or in his garage.'

Some insurers see parking you car on the street as safer than drive way etc, thieves see the vehicle on the drive, they know which house to break into to get they keys... easier to get into the house then it is modern cars... if on the street they have to guess which house to break into (and get the right one) first...

[enroz]

Expensive to those who can't afford it, cheap to those who can.

But still crazy.

[Bladedancer]

Just shows there are many truly dumb people with way too much money