Most expensive cities to park a car: Colliers

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Most expensive cities to park a car: Colliers 
The Nation: 3 Jul 2009
The Exorbitant cost of parking a car


The cost of parking a car is often a major consideration in big-city property transactions.

Consequently, global real-estate-services firm Colliers International this week revealed that Hong Kong, Sydney, Brisbane, Tokyo and Perth were the Asia-Pacific's most expensive places to park.

The five cities rank in the top 10 of the world's most expensive places to park in Colliers International's "Global Parking Rate Survey 2009". Hong Kong is the third most-expensive in the world and Sydney fourth, with both costing more to park than in midtown New York.

London remains the most expensive parking district in the world, with London city having a monthly unreserved median rate of US$1,020.29 (Bt34,700) and London's West End, $955.51. Amsterdam comes close behind with a monthly rate of $805.36.

Colliers International's report covers 133 locations around the world.

Hong Kong's median monthly parking rate is $748 and that in Sydney, $587.72.

The firm said the Hong Kong rate had risen 1 per cent from last year but that in Sydney had fallen 24 per cent. The median monthly parking rate in midtown New York is $550.

The monthly parking rate in Bangkok's central business district - only $85.71 - comes at the bottom of Colliers' list of 21 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, and the firm says the cost is relatively low because property prices in Thailand are still undervalued. The parking rate in Bangkok's Lumpini area fell to between Bt2,500 and Bt3,500 per month.

In the United States, where 6 million jobs have been lost and the business environment is "significantly challenging", the real-estate firm said monthly median parking rates had fallen a tiny 0.9 per cent and that the national average was now $154.23 per month. Such relative steadiness in the face of the present historic recession may be attributed to a continued imbalance between parking supply and demand, Colliers International said.

In Canada, parking costs have increased for a sixth consecutive year as owners and operators of parking lots resist the economic downturn.

The average monthly parking rate in Canadian cities is 222.75 Canadian dollars (Bt6,600), up 9.94 per cent from last year.