The influx of visitors during the Wimbledon tournament has led to homeowners in nearby streets capitalizing on their parking spaces as a lucrative asset. Aliya Aralbayeva, who resides in the area, began renting out her parking spaces during Wimbledon in 2017 and now sees a high demand for her slots each year. She charges £40 per space and earns between £1,400 and £1,600 annually. Aralbayeva uses the income to support a charity she runs that sends ambulances and medical teams to Ukraine. The scarcity of parking spaces in London, coupled with high demand, has resulted in a significant increase in parking prices. Marc von Grundherr, director of Benham and Reeves, reports that some parking spaces have seen their value rise by almost 50% in the past five years. Buying a parking space in London can cost anywhere between £25,000 and £250,000, depending on the location. The scarcity of parking spaces has prompted London boroughs to reduce their parking availability. However, despite efforts to encourage the use of public transport, there are currently over 2.6 million cars in London. As a result, renting out parking spaces has become a popular way for homeowners to earn extra income. Experts suggest that parking spaces add significant value to property, often as much as the value per square foot of the property itself. These spaces are usually rented out to individuals without their own parking spaces, and rental prices can vary depending on the location.
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As visitors pour into Wimbledon in South West London, homeowners in nearby streets can earn thousands of pounds in a fortnight, cashing in on an asset that is fast becoming one of the most popular types of property. of London: its parking spaces.
“Everybody here at Wimbledon does it,” says Aliya Aralbayeva, who rents two, or sometimes all three, parking spaces at her house.
Aralbayeva moved to the area in 2012 and noticed neighbors standing outside with £25 parking signs during the tournament. “The next day, he was standing outside with a sign, trying to lure drivers into our driveway… He had three or four customers.”
Aralbayeva has been using YourParkingSpace during Wimbledon since 2017, moving her own cars to friends’ houses to make more space. Now, her slots are full for the two-week tournament starting in March or April, when tickets are allocated.
This year, he’s leasing two spaces and has 28 bookings across Wimbledon. She charges £40 per space, earning between £1,400 and £1,600 each year.
Along with some of her neighbors, Aralbayeva spends her income on Medical lifelines Ukraine, the charity he runs that sends ambulances and medical teams to Ukraine. “I consider it a drop in the ocean with what has been happening in Ukraine, but it makes a difference.”
For Aralbayeva, who lives with her husband, mother-in-law and three children, joining in the excitement of Wimbledon is also part of the appeal. Some guests have parked in her driveway for several years.
One year, two women who had gotten Wimbledon tickets after several years of trying were delighted to see Novak Djokovic walking down Aralbayeva street. “She couldn’t believe how lucky he was… We have very happy visitors.”
The most expensive parking spots in London
In 2021, a parking space listed for sale for £750,000 hit the headlines, being three times the national median home price at the time. Last year a cramped space in Knightsbridge was advertised for £85,000 – substantially less, but barely big enough to fit a car. It was reduced to £50,000 earlier this year.
These prices are not anomalies. A gradual reduction in parking spaces in London, combined with high demand, means that parking spaces have become prime real estate.
“There’s a huge premium on parking, and it’s getting worse and worse, even as more people use public transport,” says Marc von Grundherr, director of Benham and Reeves. “There is a massive supply shortage.”
London’s on-street parking occupies more than 14 square kilometres, equivalent to 10 Hyde Parks, according to central londonwhile recent census data shows that 58 per cent of Londoners own a car.
In a bid to further reduce car use, reduce vehicle emissions and use public space more efficiently, London boroughs are under pressure to reduce their parking spaces.
Earlier this year, Lambeth Council announced ambitious plans to reduce 25 per cent of its curbside parking, an area the size of 194 football pitches, to help meet its 2030 climate targets.
However, there are still more than 2.6 million cars in London, which are becoming increasingly expensive to park. Von Grundherr has seen the value of some spaces increase by almost 50 percent in the last five years, a figure he expects to increase.
record spaces
Buying a parking space can cost between £25,000 and £250,000 depending on the location, says von Grundherr. Last year, he sold a double garage in north London for £1.65m, with planning permission to build a house in the space.
This, however, is rare: most buyers intend to use their car spaces. “That’s up there with the highest value for garages,” he says. “It’s crazy.”
In central London, Patrick Alvarado, a director at Nicolas van Patrick, says £80,000 represents the lower end of the market, while high-end spaces in blocks like One Hyde Park will cost around £250,000. He too has seen the upper limit stretched.
In 2016, Alvarado sold an underground car park with 150 spaces to a Middle Eastern royal for £21m in the UK’s largest ever parking-related transaction.
Located at Kingston House North in Knightsbridge, the spaces had a chauffeur-driven salon and power wash and had initially been advertised separately.
“Most of the family lived in Knightsbridge, so they bought the whole lot,” says Alvarado.
“This is just one of the parking lots they have. They own another one south of the river so that when they fly out, they can take a helicopter to Battersea heliport and have their cars detailed and ready, with drivers to pick them up and bring them here.”
A parking space currently listed for £50,000 at Rutland Gate, Knightsbridge, even though it’s barely big enough for a car
/ Nicholas van Patrick/RightmoveParking spaces, whether needed or not, add significant value to a property. This is hard to quantify, Alvarado says, but in his experience, it’s worth as much per square foot as the value of the property.
“My view is that parking is a very, very wise investment for both homeowners and tenants,” says von Grundherr. “By selling without a parking space, you are limiting your resale market considerably, even with ULEZ and the congestion charge in effect. If people need a parking space, they will pay for it, regardless of the weather.”
Rent your parking space
It’s no wonder, then, that so many people are cashing in on their unused parking spaces. Both Alvarado and von Grundherr help clients sell them separately or rent them out.
Tenants are typically people looking for long-term rentals, often owner-tenants in the same building, without their own parking space.
Rental prices range from around £150pcm in Zone 5 to £1800pcm for a Knightsbridge development, says von Grundherr. In Alvarado’s experience, rents in central London average between £5,000 and £8,000 a year.
In addition to location, the most desirable parking spaces are as close to the tenant’s or buyer’s home as possible, with CCTV, security, and gates. But, as von Grundherr says: “When people are desperate, they wouldn’t mind if it was in a field of mud.”
People despair. When one of von Grundherr’s clients was told after 10 years that he could no longer rent his parking space – belonging to a flat in Marble Arch and rented separately – he decided to rent the flat too. The costs of it increased from £100 a week to £500 a week.
“When we recently renovated it, I asked him how often he had slept there. He said, ‘You don’t want to hear. We haven’t even stayed there five nights this year.’”
Another client, a very high net worth individual from the Middle East, went a step further. He had a three-bedroom flat in a “well-known building” in Mayfair with two parking spaces, but he had six cars.
The solution? Purchase three additional one-bedroom apartments in the same building, solely to access their parking spaces. “When you are at that level, money is not an object,” says von Grundherr, who rented the apartments from him. “It doesn’t make sense, but it’s a reality.”
Fenton House has listed four parking spaces for rent at £564pcm each
/ right movementIt’s not just upscale homeowners who benefit from their spaces. With the cost of living rising, more Londoners than ever are renting out their own. For the first time, Fenton House, a National Trust property in Hampstead, listed four of its parking spaces for rent in June, each at a cost of £564pcm.
With underused spaces and the house’s operating costs rising, a spokesperson said it was an “ideal opportunity” to raise additional funds.
They added: “In addition to supporting the ongoing costs of running the home, the fees also support our vital conservation work, with every penny helping us protect and maintain this special place for generations to come.”
So far, the parking spaces have not yet been rented, but the house hopes to occupy them soon.
Hery-Christian Henry, an entrepreneur, also sees his parking space as an opportunity. “When you find ways to make your home earn money for you, it becomes an asset,” he says. “That is exactly what we have done since we bought our house in 2020.”
Living in Royal Greenwich with his partner and two children, Henry rents out his covered parking space at street level while he is away for work. Henry travels regularly, a couple of weeks out of every month, taking his car or parking it at the airport. He will charge £5-10 a day for his own parking space, which he lists on YourParkingSpace.
According to YourParkingSpace, one of several apps that allows people to advertise their parking space for rent, London users are growing. There are 27,828 parking spaces in the capital listed to date, an 11 percent increase from January this year.
Users are also up 30 percent since the start of the year, while demand for spaces in the summer typically doubles with tourists coming to town.
Apart from Wimbledon, specific locations, not necessarily in central London, are also in high demand. Last year, parking spaces near airports in Greater London brought in a collective total of £293,000, and owners of parking spaces near Luton and Stanstead had the potential to earn £3,015 per year.
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