Would you spend £120,000 on a place to park your car?
RICH Edinburgh residents are splashing out six-figure sums on garages as competition for a parking space in the capital intensifies.
Notorious for over-enthusiastic traffic wardens, the city is seeing basic garages snapped up for the same price as a four-bedroom flat or a two-bed house only a few miles away.
One estate agent recently completed a private sale for a client who paid £120,000 for a double garage. Another is at present for sale at £110,000 and has had interest since going on the market last week. A single garage on the same street is being sold for £80,000.
Blair Stewart of Strutt & Parker said: ‘A garage in the West End has gone to one of our clients for £120,000 to house his very smart cars. More offices are getting turned into flats. Given their value, residents tend to have really nice cars they don’t particularly want left on the street in the West End or New Town.’
Only six miles away in Niddrie, £100,000 would buy a two-bedroom, mid-terrace house, with front and back garden and driveway.
Five miles away in Wester Hailes, the same sum would buy a fourbedroom, recently renovated flat.
Mr Stewart said: ‘The market is at a height we haven’t seen before due to the increased need for parking, the increased pressure of offices in the West End being used for residential, the increasing population and more cars on the road.’
The cost of a day’s parking in the centre of Edinburgh for the day can be £25 and is set to rise. This week, the City of Edinburgh Council approved plans to increase onstreet parking charges by April. Mr Stewart recently sold a parking space and a half, suitable for a large 4x4, in the New Town for £50,000. He said: ‘If a parking space is £30,000 to £40,000 and you have a garage with power and water and security doors and it is £120,000, it isn’t bad value.’
Commenting on the garage on offer for £110,000, he added: ‘To be able to park your large car just straight off the road, I think somebody would have no issue at all about reserving it for that.
‘ It’s a l ot of money, but you always get interest. We’ve had ten or 15 inquiries since it went on last week.’
Alan Fraser of Investment Property Agency said a double garage in a desirable Edinburgh location can be rented for £6,000 a year.
He added: ‘If you don’t want to buy a flat to rent out, buying a garage is less hassle for the owner.
‘The bottom line is parking costs have increased in Edinburgh. If it is going to cost you more to park per day, then it makes sense just to buy an asset.
‘It’s all about supply and demand. There hasn’t been a significant number of garages built in Edinburgh since the 1960s.’
In 2014, a rundown garage behind a row of terraces in London, with planning permission to be turned into a house, was sold for £555,000.
‘It’s about supply and demand’