Parking Spaces the New Investment Vehicle in Gridlocked Housing Market

For high density housing, multiple parking stalls attached to a unit can be a major incentive for purchasers. Where developers will commonly building only slightly more than one parking spot per unit, the option to have a second stall is always appreciated – especially with the wealthy who often own multiple vehicles.

There are normally two types of parking associated with condominiums – assigned and deeded.

Assigned parking is normally common property that the board assigns to units, sometimes on a yearly or multi-year basis, as an exclusive use area much like balconies. The space is common property, but you are the sole person allowed to access it. Transfer of the stall is at the control of the board.

Deeded acts much like your unit – often with its own tax roll. These can be sold or traded just like a unit can be, but often with caveats on who can buy. Deeded titles normally have unit factors attached to them as well – so selling or buying them will change your monthly condominium contribution.

A good condominium corporation will have bylaws in place that limit ownership of a stall to those who also own units. If you sell your unit, you are also required to sell your stalls to other owners (normally the person buying). Bad corporations allow anybody to own parking stalls – which over time tends to put them in non-owner hands, managed by people who have little incentive in the maintenance of the building as a residence.

For many urban centers, parking spots are maintaining their value or rising – even when units are dropping in price. A parking unit in Boston (200 sq. feet) sold for $125,000. Toronto sold a spot for $100,000.

These are in part driven by municipal regulations that are either lowering the minimum number of parking stalls developers are required to build per unit built, or in some cases capping the amount of stalls within very dense regions in order to reduce traffic issues. Both of these will force parking stall prices higher, especially when newer developments (with fewer parking spaces) get infilled into spaces previous held by lower density and higher parking ratio buildings.