How Much is a parking spot worth to you?

by Prince Of Petworth May 3, 2016 at 2:15 pm 46 Comments

1210 R Street Northwest

I’m curious what folks think about this one listed at 1210 R Street, Northwest:

“Parking Spot Available Two Blocks From Logan Circle!”

It’s going for $37,000.

What’s a parking spot worth to you?

I also like how they include a photo of metro:

parking metro

domrep

When I first got my condo, I was told parking would be an additional $20K. I laughed and said no thanks, didn’t have a care. Boy knowing what I know now, I should have gotten it anyway and rented it out. 20 grand is the absolute max I’d pay.
- A. Nony Mouse
  
  Assuming you have a 30 year loan and lets say a 3.5% interest rate it would have been $90 a month. You can rent a space for $200 a month easily.
  - domrep
    
    It was pretty dumb on my part to not think about it long term. When I bought I was single and had no plans for marriage. 5 years later I’m getting married and putting the condo on the market. The parking spot would have probably added another 20K to the value, but it is what it is.
SilverSpringGal

Hmmm, my building is literally across the circle from there and the going rate is $30K for outdoors for what its worth.
Tsar of Truxton

With a 30 year mortgage at 4% (which is high) and nothing down, that is about $177 per month, so probably cheaper than renting a spot in that area. If you can afford to pay cash, it would come to like $103 per month over 30 years, so not bad. You would be able to recoup some or all of that money when you sell it in the future.
sbc

we got one included with our townhouse. We’ve chosen to use it rather than park on the street and rent it out for the going rate of about $150 a month. So at our mortgage interest rate, I guess we value it at about $35,000.
callmeB

Just bought outdoor parking with my condo for 15k, which I was pretty stoked about. Don’t have a car, but gonna rent it out. Over 30 years, that’s a mortgage of $70/month.
Anon

I paid $50k for a garage spot in Georgetown about six years ago. (Asking price was $60k.) Weirdly, I couldn’t find a bank that would give me a loan (even though I’m low risk credit-wise), so I had to pay out of pocket.
anon

I own a space on the 1300 block of R that was included with my condo but deeded separately. I pay a separate property tax bill and the assessed value for the space is $25,000, but this value has not changed in the six years I’ve owned it and may not have changed for some time before that. All of this is to say that I don’t think 37k is surprising at all.
condoer

When I bought my condo the price of the parking spot (in an uncovered lot behind the building) was wrapped into the overall price negotiation, so I can’t say exactly what I paid for it. However, new construction around 14th/Meridian Hill park area seems to price uncovered parking spots between $30-35k. However, I have no idea if the developers actually get that.
Shebamarie

We paid 40k for an underground parking spot in Adams Morgan and I think it was worth it.
Myron

Probably a bad long-term buy as self-driving cars and decreased private car ownership will eventually make most private parking spaces obsolete.
- I Dont Get It
  
  Where will you park your self-driving car? Or will it circle the block all night?
  - Jill
    
    Maybe he means that self-driving cars will decrease the cost of cabs to the point where it’s more cost effective to take them everywhere than own a car.
    - Timebomb
      
      Right. I don’t think anybody thinks that truly self-driving cars are something anyone needs to own. An owned car is going to spend 95% of its time parked (at least) and that’s just a waste of valuable (clearly!) real estate.
- Jill
  
  Private car ownership will continue as long as the suburbs remain largely public transit-inaccessible and people still need to get to those places for work. Ubers are fine for occasional trips out to MD/VA but too expensive if you have to use them 10x a week. Maybe the increase in telecommuting will help with that, though.
  - Timebomb
    
    Or the increasing urbanization of the well-heeled will pull more jobs away from office parks and over transit (whether in the District or outside)?
    .
    This is already happening. Office park vacancies are high and people are frantically trying to figure out what to do with them to keep them useful.
    - Jill
      
      Really? I thought reverse commutes were on the rise. I personally don’t know many DC residents who also work in the city.
      - Timebomb
        
        I don’t have any stats on reverse commutes, but, like I said, office parks are increasingly vacant (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-old-suburban-office-park-is-the-new-american-ghost-town/2015/07/20/b8e7653a-1f6e-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html) and developers are rapidly building large office buildings over metro stations (see: anything about development in Tysons or Reston, for example).
        .
        I am lots of clients out in Reston and thereabouts and Rockville and thereabouts, and all have at least vague plans of moving to something walkable to a metro station if they aren’t already.
        .
        So, reverse commutes don’t necessarily mean needing a car. Obviously, people are going to have to make their own judgement calls and cost/benefit analysis, etc.
      - Timebomb
        
        Also, either reverse-commuters will eventually start controlling decisions and decide to place things closer to (or in) town, or they’ll move out to the suburbs while taking some urbanization with them (again, this is already happening; jurisdictions outside of the District are rapidly urbanizing, at least around metro stations).
- anon
  
  kind of an aside, but worth pointing out to people who think self-driving cars are the future. self-driving cars won’t fix the bottlenecks that come with peak travel time. they can re-route and alleviate some bottlenecks, but if you’re trying to move 500,000 cars around the metro area between 9-10 am, it doesn’t matter who’s driving them, they’ll get backed up any time there’s a turn lane or 3 lanes merging into 2. public transit is the way forward; time to fix it.
  - Timebomb
    
    While I agree that transit is important and shouldn’t be ignored for the sake of self-driving cars, self-driving vehicles will be able to pool very effectively and automatically (like the UberPOOL feature does today), so they will take quite a few cars off the road at peak time. To say nothing of how much space will be reclaimed because they won’t need to remain parked much if at all (other than for servicing).
  - Cassie
    
    I do wonder if traffic might be better with self-driving cars, because there is some study out there about how people are terrible about timing their merges, which creates the most traffic, whereas a closed system of self-driving cars would be able to time everything perfectly.
    - anon
      
      yes, perhaps the timing would get better, so it wouldn’t get as backed up, but it would definitely still get backed up. think about it, you have 20 cars spread out in two lanes. if each car takes up 40 feet of space, with 10 cars per lane, that’s 400 feet of traffic. after they move to one lane, it’s 800 feet of traffic. even if the merge is more seamless, traffic will still have to slow down, and then by the time you hit the next light, you have a traffic jam on your hands.
      - jp
        
        Autonomous cars will be able to merge and navigate intersections at incredibly high speeds.
        
        In addition, there will be fewer people working in offices downtown. Whatever is left of the economy in 20 years will be managed by fewer employees working less hours in offices or completely remote.
        
        $37K for a parking spot is a pretty bad long-term investment.
Hill east

This is a question from someone that has never owned a parking spot. I get that many spots are deeded separately than the condo, which makes them individually sell-able. However, my impression is that most condo spots are in a secured area. I would imagine your condo mates would be OK with people renting these spots. It also severally limits who you can sell them too, which depress values. Do condo rules restrict these?
- anon
  
  If it is in a secured condo garage, then you can often only rent to another resident. I am only familiar with large buildings–the rules might be different for small pop-up condos with parking that faces the alley.
- anon
  
  If there are gates or garage doors, where you would need to give the renter a way to access the building, then the condo’s rules would probably specify if and how it could be done. In my (smaller) building, the parking spots are open to the alley. Someone parking there wouldn’t need any special access to the building or its parking lot, so the condo rules don’t restrict anything.
- Rich
  
  I live nearby and my assessed value for an indoor space is 35K. I rent out the space and am not the only one. We also have former owners in the building who still own their parking spaces and live nearby. Buildings can be awfully flexible ..or not.
The King Ad-Hoc

Zero, but that is because I gave up my car years ago.
- Jill
  
  I wouldn’t pay anything for a parking spot because street parking in still relatively easy in my neighborhood (for now anyway). Maybe if I lived in Logan Circle I would consider it worth the investment though,
- A. Nony Mouse
  
  So if someone offered it to you for a dollar you would say no? Even though you could easily rent it for $200+ a month?
Vermonter

I live on Vermont, off of Logan Circle, and have an alley parking spot. I listed my spot for $200 a month, and there was a bidding war, and it ended up going for $300/month. That’s NOI of $3,600 per annum. At a conservative cap rate of 8%, that’s $45,000. At a more likely rate of 6%, that’s $60,000.
- JohnH
  
  Really? I have friends at 11th and Vermont and they stopped renting their spot because it was more of a pain than anything (I think they asked 150). So much turnover.
  .
  I live between there and Shaw Metro entrance on R and I have never once had to street park more than 1.5 blocks away. It’s definitely tougher on Fri/Sat nights, but it’s not that hard even closer to 14th. Not $200/month hard.
Anon

I paid 18K for a garage space in a condo building in Dupont about 20 years ago. When we closed, the older couple I bought it from said it was more than they had paid for their first house. I considered inviting all my friends over to have a “space warming party.”
MKDGman

Our parking spot’s (underground garage) in Dupont Circle appraised for $35k and would sell separately from the condo for $50k easily. We got $300/month renting it out.
- anon
  
  just curious, do you have to get a business license to rent out a parking space?
  - Timebomb
    
    If you intend to report the income legitimately, yes. You’ll have to do a D-30 to the District government and probably pay the minimum $250 franchise fee (in addition to $300 every two years for the business license), and then pay federal taxes on any profit you don’t find expenses to deduct against (with depreciation and maybe some mortgage interest and other stuff, you can probably cancel it out).
    .
    Again, if you want to be totally legit. I doubt there’s anyone at DCRA/OTR/the IRS that’s going to tell you you’re allowed to just not report the income. Unless there’s some threshold that you’re under for reportable income ($3600 doesn’t sound small enough to ignore to me).
    - anon
      
      You can report the income to OTR and the IRS even if you don’t have a license — DCRA does not confer with OTR or the IRS.
      - Timebomb
        
        You’re probably right. I’m sure a person can get away with any number of things. DCRA and OTR are not well-oiled machines. In order to pay OTR on a D-30, you’d need an FR500 filed with them. You might need to show a business license to file the FR500. I don’t remember. Any time I have business at either agency, I inevitably have to walk across the street and get something from the other, and it’s all just a bureaucratic haze I pay as little attention to as possible.
        .
        In any case, I’m sure if you asked anyone if you needed a license, they would tell you you do.
        .
        Conversely, I doubt people who rent out parking spaces for $200-$300/month bother to report anyway. You wouldn’t likely owe taxes on that money, so I wouldn’t judge you that harshly.
stcohi

I think it depends on the neighborhood. I lived near the old Giant in Shaw some years ago and could routinely find a place to park. That’s hardly the case now, clearly. I think a spot would go for more in DuPont or Adams Morgan, and probably even more in parts of Georgetown. How much of that is supply of parking spots and supply of money — I’m not sure.
Timebomb

I don’t think including the picture of the metro is that weird (at least, not weirder than when used on home listings). Being able to use transit, etc. while still owning a car is part of the reason one might want an off-street space. No dealing with the hassle of keeping track of street restrictions, sweeping, etc.
.
It’s probably not the most cost-effective lifestyle, but people might have weird weekend car needs or just a lot of money to burn for having a sick car. Or whatever.
Nancy

Not a cent.

never owned a car. Have no use for a space.
Nancy

Not a cent. I don’t own a car. Never have and am well into my 50s.
SS

i live in this building and currently rent a spot for $200 a month so this seems totally worth it as mortgage for it would likely be cheaper.
James

I live on R one block from Logan and was quoted 35k for a spot when I bought 4 years ago.

My building does not have restrictions on renting your spot to ppl outside the building as there is a fairly robust internal market for renting spots. But I suspect if you tried to rent to someone who did not live here the Board would change the rules in a heartbeat.

Subscribe to our mailing list