Pay A Pretty Penny For The Parking Place Priced At £250,000
Everyone knows that London tends to be a little bit harsher on the pockets than, well pretty much anywhere else in the UK. Everything from pints to fake hills cost more than they necessarily should. And, right on cue, there’s now a parking space going for an incredibly normal and reasonable quarter million pounds…!
The space, which also racks up the best part of £1,000 annual service charge (!) costs around the national average property price.
But for some reason smart estate agent Knight Frank is asking that for a parking space, and if you’re wondering why (and you’d better be) it’s because it’s opposite the shopping colossus Harrods. And, more specifically, it’s inside a private car park two levels underground (so at least you’ll know your motor’s safe if a hurricane hits Knightsbridge.)
The entire £250,000 space measures 8ft by 13 1/2 ft and has a square footage of 108 sq ft. In fact, it’s a foot too short to accommodate a Lamborghini Huracán, the only sort of car that would feel at home on such a glitzy slice of concrete.
Its a foot too short to accommodate a Lamborghini Huracán...
The other cool features that, according to the agent’s website, come with Harrod’s rather oversized toy garage include a lift, so that you can pretend you’re Batman going down into the depths of the Batcave to get into your Batmobile (or Mercedes-Benz equivalent), 24 hour access (which to be fair, you can get in the most rudimentary of normal parking spaces, like the one outside your house), and 24 hour security (I assume provided by an Alfred-from-Batman-esque butler, who’ll indulge your fantasy by greeting you with a “Master Wayne” and a cream tea.)
There's a lift, so that you can pretend you're Batman going down into the depths of the Batcave...
Other things that the site highlights include the fact it was built in the early 2000s (in case you’re already nostalgically pining after that particular epoch of car parks) and that it has approximately 80 years left on the leasehold. We boffins at The Handbook put Deep Blue to the test and concluded that £250,000 divided by 80 equals £3,125 per year, or a little under 50 times more than the annual parking permit cost in Britain. If you’re at the age where you could feasibly have this kind of money you probably won’t live to see out the 80 years, but who knows, modern medicine could change that and you’ll be cryogenically laughing at everyone pouring coins into parking meters.
If you're at the age where you could feasibly have this kind of money you probably won't live to see out the 80 years, but who knows, modern medicine could change that...
According to the agent, it’s “ideally located opposite Harrods” which rather confuses me as to what you’re paying for. Maybe you’re paying £250,000 to drive you car across the street in order to shop, and then back again. Or perhaps the “ideal” aspect is that, being right next to it, this is probably the best placed spot to be able to drive the furthest feasible distance away from Harrods and its busy floors, so this could be an excellent £250,000 real estate purchase for firm anti-capitalists, or Debenhams die-hards who hate Harrods and can’t accept that their beloved store chain is gone. Or, it’s just a £250,000 way of being able to say “I park my car next to a big shop.”
Or, it's just a £250,000 way of being able to say "I park my car next to a big shop"...
You’ll additionally find yourself receiving annual £780 service charge invoices every year (not sure what that translates to over 80 years, but I think it hovers a little above the cost of one Bitcoin). I also forgot to mention that yet another feature mentioned on the website is 24 hour remote access, does that mean you can look at some kind of live feed of your car sat there, no doubt mocking you for spending £250,000 on its house? Or allow you to remotely drive your car out of it like Pierce Brosnan’s Bond does in Tomorrow Never Dies?
You additionally have to pay £780 in service charges per year...
Whatever your reason is, the parking space is on the Knight Frank website for all to see. Of course, most of us would have to sell an arm, a kidney, a house and probably the same car we’d want to put in the garage to be able to afford it and its upkeep, but if you’ve got the cash to splash (and withstanding every reason we’ve already covered), then why not?
