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The plot of land that the Murray Road multi-story car park stood on in the Central district of Hong Kong, China, was sold for $3 billion earlier this year.
Underscoring the heated market, Hong Kong took the No 1 spot globally for car parks last week when a Hong Kong executive paid a record HK$5.18 million for a 188 square foot space at the Upton development in Sai Ying Pun.
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From an average of HK$396,000 in 2005, car park spaces have risen 270 per cent to HK$1.47 million in April, after touching a record of HK$1.51 million in March, according to data provided from JLL.
During the same period, prices for secondary homes rose 256 per cent to 327.4 points, up from 92 in 2005, according to the Rating and Valuation Department’s home price index.
Chow attributed the rising prices to a shortage of car parks.
Three government public car parks, the Tsuen Wan Transport Complex Car Park, the Middle Road Multi-storey Car Park in Tsimshatsui and Murray Road Car Park in Central have been closed for redevelopment into commercial and residential projects. Since 2013, the city has lost 1,888 car parking spaces owing to changing land use.
Another factor weighing on supply can be traced to changes of the floor area exemption policy in April 2011. Following the change, car parking spaces need to be placed below ground level in order to get full exemption from gross floor area calculations.
