Be prepared to drop a pretty penny – up to as much as $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 in the country.
The Brimmer Street Garage, located at 70 Brimmer St. in Beacon Hill, features coveted parking spaces that regularly sell for half a million dollars. The enthusiastic buyers often pay for their spaces entirely in cash, given the multi-million dollar homes in the area.
“If you buy a house at that level, it’s not that shocking to add $500,000 for that parking convenience,” said real estate agent Betsy Herald.
Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood has some of the most exclusive parking in the country. At the Brimmer Street Garage, parking spaces routinely sell for $500,000
The Brimmer Street Garage, a former horse and carriage home, currently has no parking available. There is a waiting list for people desperate to get a spot
Because parking is extremely limited in the historic district, wealthy residents are willing to pay huge sums of money for the convenience.
Although parking sales are difficult to track (they are often intertwined with condo or home sales), when sold separately, parking spaces cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Boston real estate agents have said high parking prices are symptomatic of the city’s hot and expensive housing market.
In Beacon Hill, the average sales price for a home is $4.3 million, and about four in five properties are listed at $1 million or more. Former Secretary of State and presidential candidate John Kerry is just one of the neighborhood’s well-known residents.
About a parking lot, Herald said, “You have to think of it as a piece of land.”
The real estate agent told the Boston Globe that “if you take that parking space and multiply it by twenty, you have a buildable piece of land in Boston that is worth a significant amount of money.”
In 1979, a space in the garage cost $7,500. Now they’re raising more than $500,000
Rising parking prices are seen as an outgrowth of Boston’s booming real estate market. As property values continue to rise, so do the values of parking spaces
The Brimmer Street Garage, once a modest horse and carriage garage, bills itself as Beacon Hill’s “most exclusive location to snag a parking space.”
The spaces in the garage are sold privately and the owners are obliged to pay association fees and property taxes on the parking spaces.
In addition to the parking lot, owners of a space in the Brimmer Street Garage also enjoy a 24-hour valet service and can have their extravagant cars detailed, cleaned and refueled if the owners wish.
In 1979, spots in the Brimmer Street Garage cost $7,500. Now they can raise more than $500,000, and there is a waiting list to purchase a spot.
Beacon Hill has some of the most expensive parking in Boston. This is because real estate in the area is so expensive and available parking is limited
One real estate agent rationalized the eye-watering parking prices this way: “If you take that parking space and multiply it by twenty, you have a buildable piece of land in Boston that is worth a significant amount of money.
Herald said the garage will allow the ultra-rich to realize their dreams.
“The garage will be the opportunity for them to make living in their dream neighborhood and their dream home on Beacon Hill a reality.”
In Boston, expensive parking is not limited to Beacon Hill. On the outskirts of Back Bay, a couple received a surprise offer of $750,000 for their parking lot in 2022.
Last year, an outdoor parking lot in an alley in Back Bay generated $250,000.
With prices for parking spaces skyrocketing, some real estate agents consider purchasing them a wise investment. As long as property values continue to rise, so should the value of parking spaces.
Beth Dickerson, a broker for Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty, told the Boston sphere that a parking lot in Back Bay, which she sells for $350,000, went for $275,000 just seven years ago.
Real estate agents said Boston’s wealthiest are willing to spend large sums of money on parking because they already pay a high price for their homes
Herald recalled a time when a parking lot behind Newbury Street sold for $15,000 20 years ago. That same place is now worth an estimated $400,000.
Herald recalled 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 lot for $500,000.”