Why a Hong Kong Parking Space Sold for $970,000
A single rectangle of basement concrete in Hong Kong's Central district sold for close to a million U.S. dollars. The price only makes sense once you follow the skyscraper above it.
The short version
In October 2019, parking bay B1-1023 under The Center, a 73-story office tower in Hong Kong, sold for HK$7.6 million, about US$970,000, and was billed as the most expensive parking space in the city and perhaps the world. After a record 2017 deal for a 75% stake in the tower, its new investor group resold it floor by floor, and this space went to someone who already owned office space in the building. Its price per square foot was more than three times Hong Kong's median home price per square foot.
Bay B1-1023, under The Center
In late October 2019, news reports said a single parking space in Hong Kong had changed hands for HK$7.6 million, about US$970,000 (the South China Morning Post put it at US$969,000). The space, bay B1-1023, is on the top level of a three-level basement under The Center, a 73-story office tower on Queen's Road Central. It sits in an executive parking area for tenants, next to a wall with a recess that makes it easier to get in and out of. The sale was still being completed when it was reported.
Fortune, republishing Bloomberg's report, described it as the most expensive place to park a car in Hong Kong and perhaps anywhere in the world. For an American yardstick, the median sales price of a new house in the United States was $318,400 in the third quarter of 2019 and $327,100 in the fourth, according to Census Bureau and HUD data. One parking space cost about three times as much.
First the tower, then the floors, then the parking
The space's price starts with a deal two years earlier. In November 2017, a 75% stake in the company that owns The Center sold for HK$40.2 billion, about US$5.15 billion. It was reported as a record for a Hong Kong office tower and, in some accounts, the biggest single property sale ever. The buyers were a consortium of about 10 investors.
The new owners did not keep the building in one piece. Individual floors were resold over the following years. One of them, the 48th floor, sold in October 2020 for HK$980 million, according to the property news site Mingtiandi, which also reported that the investor group had paid an average of HK$33,000 per square foot for the tower.
The parking garage followed the same path. The seller of bay B1-1023 was one of the investors in that consortium and had owned four spaces in the building. This was the last of them; the other three had each sold for six-figure sums in U.S. dollars. EdgeProp, citing Bloomberg, reported that the seller had made around HK$900 million in about nine months the previous year by buying and selling office floors.
Why anyone would pay that much to park
The buyer was not publicly identified, but reports said it was someone who already owned office space in The Center and needed a place to park. For a buyer like that, the price of a space is weighed against the value of the floors upstairs, not against the price of a car. Stanley Poon of Centaline Commercial told Bloomberg that, compared with the office floors such owners hold, it was "not a significant purchase."
Location inside the building mattered too. Agents quoted at the time put the average price of a parking space at The Center at about HK$6 million, so B1-1023, with its easier access, sold at a clear premium even within its own garage.
Across Hong Kong, the squeeze comes from growth more than from an absolute shortage. Official figures published in April 2019 show that in the decade to the end of 2018, private cars and light vans rose about 45%, from roughly 424,000 to 616,000, while parking spaces available to them grew about 9%, from roughly 618,000 to 675,000. Officials said keeping pace with the growing fleet was effectively impossible. Overall there were still more spaces than cars, so the pressure is likely sharpest in specific places, such as the prime office towers of Central.
The square-foot math
The space was reported at 134.5 square feet, about 12.5 square meters. At HK$7.6 million, that works out to HK$56,505 per square foot, or about US$7,209 by Gulf News's conversion. The South China Morning Post noted that this was more than three times Hong Kong's median home price, measured per square foot.
It also topped the building's own office prices on the same basis: the roughly HK$33,000 per square foot the investor group paid for the tower, and the HK$38,140 per square foot paid for the 48th floor in 2020. Fortune offered one more comparison: the same money could have bought a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.
What a parking space says about property prices
A parking space is priced by what surrounds it, not by the concrete. In a tower where a single floor could sell for HK$980 million, the last few parking spaces became one more slice of a very expensive building, sold to the people who needed them most. Keep in mind that this is a 2019 transaction: it was billed as a record then, and it describes that moment's market, not today's.
Questions people ask
Where is the $970,000 parking space?
It is bay B1-1023, on the top level of the three-level basement under The Center, a 73-story office tower on Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong.
Who bought the Hong Kong parking space?
The buyer was not publicly named. Reports said it was someone who already owned office space in The Center. The seller was one of the investors who bought into the tower in 2017.
Is it the most expensive parking space in the world?
When it sold in 2019, it was described as the most expensive parking space in Hong Kong and perhaps the world. That makes it a 2019 record, reflecting the market at the time of the sale, rather than a permanent title.
Sources
- As Protests Mount, a Hong Kong Parking Space Sells for Almost $1 MillionFortune (Bloomberg) · 2019-10-24
- World's most expensive parking space sells for almost US$1 million in Hong KongSouth China Morning Post · 2019-10-23
- World's costliest parking space sold for almost $1mGulf News · 2019-10-26
- Hong Kong: where you find the planet's most expensive parking spaceEdgeProp · 2019-10-23
- Hong Kong's CK Asset to sell office tower for record $5.2 billionBusiness Standard (Reuters) · 2017-11-02
- Li Ka-shing's Central skyscraper The Center sold for record HK$40.2bnHong Kong Free Press · 2017-11-01
- Hong Kong Tycoon Sells Floor in the Center for $126.5M as Downturn Drags OnMingtiandi · 2020-10-25
- LCQ3: Provision of parking spacesGovernment of the Hong Kong SAR · 2019-04-03
- Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States (MSPUS)U.S. Census Bureau and HUD, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis · 2026-07-24
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