Being the 7th largest country on Earth has its own perks. Even with the 2nd largest population of 1.3 billion people, we have no shortage of parking spaces in our homes, neighbourhood and markets. But there are places in the world which are short on parking spaces, like Hong Kong. Such is the shortage of parking spots in one of the most developed regions in the Eastern Asia that people have to buy a parking space before buying a car.
The market for parking spaces is getting hotter with every passing day and someone bought a single spot in Kowloon’s Ho Man Tin district for a record HK$ 6 million (Rs 5.3 Crore in today’s exchange rate). That’s a never heard before price for a single parking spot.
“It’s crazy," said Darrin Woo, a classic car collector from Hong Kong who shipped his 1968 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman limousine and a 1957 Fiat Abarth to California to save money on storage. “Buy a space? No way. I could buy five cars for that much.”
But that’s not just a one-off record-making deal as the average parking space retails for HK$ 2.25 million (Rs 2 Core), a more than six fold increase since 2006. On the other hand, the home prices have increased a mere 3.4 times over the same period.
Volume wise the number of parking spaces grew at just 9.5 percent from 2006 through 2016. On the other hand, the private car number increased by 49 percent to 536,025, according to a report by the city’s Transport Department.
But it’s not just Hong Kong but car owners in London and New York are facing the similar problems.
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