You could buy two median priced houses in Massachusetts, or you could buy a patch of ground inside a Boston garage just big enough to fit your car in.
The Bates Real Estate Report writes that a garage in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood is selling a single parking space for $650,000, which appears to be a record high for the city.
Bates reports the last sale of a spot in the Brimmer Street Garage, which is heated and includes valet parking, was in October for $390,000. Spaces originally sold for $7,900 when the garage first opened in 1979.
This isn't the first time the price of a Boston parking spot raised eyebrows higher than the Big Green Monster. An auction for a pair of Back Bay spots in 2013 began at $42,000 and ended up stopping at $560,000. And unlike the Brimmer Street sale, those spaces are outside, a great place to be in Boston in January.
As of 2013, the Globe notes, the median price for a home in Massachusetts was $313,000.
Parking is rough in Boston. Much of the city's layout traces back to pre-Revolutionary War times, meaning many streets aren't wide enough for parking. And that's even before you factor in the snow. So while these prices don't quite match the highs of the $1 million asking price at some New York City condos, they aren't in fancy new developments, but garages from the 1970s and tax-foreclosed outdoor lots.
In many ways, the expensive spots are just an extension of the Boston tradition of reserving curb space with a folding chair, just with a much more expensive and legally binding chair.