Well, this depends on the economic principle known as the Law of Supply and Idiots. This principle assumes that there will always be a bigger idiot than you to whom you can pass the loss.
The problem with that principle is that ** you ** are, sooner or later, somebody else’s bigger idiot.
Economists call this theory the Law of Supply and Idiots. This theory assumes that, whenever you have made a stupid investment, there will always be a bigger idiot than you are to whom you can pass the loss.
The problem with this theory is that ** you ** are, sooner or later, somebody else’s bigger idiot.
Are you sure they are for sale for use and not as investments? I have seen car park spaces being sold as investments, you get the fees from folks renting them out by the hour/day/month just as you get the rental from owning an apartment and letting it out. I can only presume that all owners of all spots get a cut of all the takings, that you don’t have to be spruiking to get folks into your particular spot.
This is yet another reminder of my biggest financial blunder ever. Back in 1993, my uncle (real estate agent) came to me and told me about a friend of his who was selling parking spots in River North and Streeterville (upper income areas just N of Downtown Chicago) He was getting them for about 3-5K per spot and as my ex and I had about 30K to spend, we thought about it but I foolishly decided to let her dad invest it. In my defense, he was and still is a very very good CFA.
Now those spots are going for any where from 30-60K per spot. Remember, when someone is spending 750K - 1.5M on a condo, an extra 40 Gs so they can park is no big deal. At the co-op my inlaws lived in for a while, some of the owners would buy such a spot so their maids wouldnt have to park too far away.
Another reason to be very happy that I bike to work every day, and use public transit for the trips into town I don’t feel like biking for. Bicycle parking is free. Beautiful thing.
Parking garages, on the other hand, are not beautiful things. Ideally, people have the good sense to put them underground, but there are several hideous monuments to the automobile rising above downtown Boston that just make me think of the wasted potential for nice buildings or parks. The nice little park in Post Office Square is a great example of the benefits of putting a parking garage underground.
How do you get a mortgage on a parking space? 
Yikes. I just cannot comprehend the cost living it a city. Parking at college is $15 for 11 weeks and I try to avoid paying it.
A pox on mortgaging the parking spot. Can I sell it? Can I set it up as time shares and sell you the right to park in it from 6:00 P.M. to 5:00 A.M. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the right to park on weekends to someone else and keep the rest for myself? Is there a futures market for this parking space? Can I put it in my retirement plan? Can I incorporate my parking place? Do I get depreciation on it for my taxes? Can I invest part of my social security funds in it? Better yet, can I invest part of your social security contribution in it and still park there? The possibilities are endless. We can make more money on this lousy parking place that we could ever dream of just doing each others laundry. We’ll all be rich! Filthy rich!
Filthy rich is right, especially if you give up doing laundry just so you can concentrate on this.
Strangely, this was a thought I has when I first woke up this morning.
Couldn’t you build a garage, and sell the spots as time shares? That way if you moved, you could “trade” your spot to someone that might be moving to your city, much like the vacation spots.
Hmmmmmm.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of spaces were sold to local companies for their top execs, rather than to individuals. IMO, this would be a very good investment.
The factor a few are missing out on when trying to work out the average cost per year is that if you had that kind of money to invest in a parking spot, you would almost certainly be better off renting yearly(if you must), and investing the rest elsewhere.
If you then add in the return that you’d get from investing your $30k, even if you set it up as a diminishing fund, you would be able to use the gains to defray your parking costs.
Unless that parking spot is certain to rise in value and that it would be a tradeable commodity you really are onto a loser.
Also, there is probably an annual maintenance cost to consider, and this will be determined by the management of the parking lot company, so you actually lose even more money.
Lastly, by sinking $30k into this investment you lose flexibility, and that could be extremely costly, I cannot imagine that this could be traded or converted as easily as most other financial vehicles.
OTOH, imagination and risk can bring great rewards, you would have to be in a position where $30k represented an amount you could easily write off.
Some structural engineers I know are questioning the durability of prefabricated parking structures (which it is likely this is). There is a chance, albeit unknown, that the structure may not last that 17 years without some serious maintenance and improvements needed. I assume this comes from the ‘membership fee’ - but does it?
And do they have an insurance policy that covers the vehicles in case of catastrophic failure? Fire? (yes, I know they are mostly concrete, but light and wires burn and short and fall on cars…it happened at a garage here recently, where a burning wire fell on a car, and the garage owners had no insurance whatsoever…) Is there security paid for? Who replaces the lights and runs the place? Who comes out and removes people from your spot when you pull in and find out someone else is there? Do they give you a refund when you have to park 10 blocks away in the street because someone is in your spot, and there’s no way to contact them to have the usurping car towed?
Lots of things to consider.