It would probably surprise you that a 16 sq m single car parking space at Bondi in Sydney, recently sold for $240,000 – but amazingly other sales in the same price range are expected to follow.

Over the last few years Councils across Australia have been attempting to minimise traffic congestion by reducing the number of car parking spaces available in new developments.  As the number of parking spaces is dropping, the value of these spaces is soaring.  Car parking spaces in Sydney, once worth $5000 to $10,000, are now regularly selling for between $40,000 and $140,000 each.

Brisbane City Council has also tightened rules to reduce parking in buildings over recent years, and the number of available carpark spaces had been reduced by 50 per cent.

Business owners with spare parking spaces, and owners of inner city units without a car, have been using services like SpaceOut (www.spaceout.com.au) to rent out their unused parking spaces and cash in on council policy changes.

There is currently a proposal put forward by the City of Melbourne (which is yet to be approved), limiting a single car park space per dwelling for new developments at inner-suburban Carlton and Southbank, and in parts of the northwest and east of the city.

As inner city parking becomes increasingly scarce across CBDs throughout Australia, there will be more and more opportunities for the owners of Private and Business parking spaces to make some extra cash, by renting their unused space out.  Conversely, as the price of inner city parking fees increase there are fabulous opportunities for people looking for a parking space to make great savings by searching for cheap parking on SpaceOut.