World’s most expensive parking space in Hong Kong changes owners for US$969,000, triple the city’s median home price

A parking bay at The Center – the 73-storey Hong Kong office tower that still holds the world record as the costliest commercial building ever sold – changed hands recently for HK$7.6 million (US$969,000), making it the most expensive spot on earth to park a vehicle.

Johnny Cheung Shun-yee, one of the 10 investors in the consortium that paid US$5.15 billion last year for The Center.

He had sold the last of his four car parks in the tower to someone who owns an office in the same building because “the buyer now needs a car park lot,” declining to identify the buyer.

The transacted price is equivalent to HK$56,505 per sq ft for a standard parking space that measures 134.5 sq ft (12.5 square metres).

It is more than three times Hong Kong’s median home price, which itself had topped global rankings for nine consecutive years, according to data by CBRE.

The sale price, in a city where nearly one in five residents lived below the government-defined poverty line in 2017, underscores the wealth gap that has pushed Hong Kong into the worst political crisis in decades.

The unprecedented protests are the culmination of many decades of neglect by a laissez-faire government of the underclass, where housing affordability and a yawning wealth gap have become the most poignant manifestation of this dissatisfaction.

Ref: Property Report