Stockholm parking spots pricier than apartments

A 700,000 kronor ($105,051) asking price didn't stop the sale of a parking spot in Stockholm's trendy Östermalm district where the price for real estate designated for cars can exceed the per square-metre price of nearby apartments.

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There has been a growing trend in Stockholm of parking prices rising to such enormous amounts that they’ve exceeding some apartments in cost per metre square.

Recently, the Fredegård estate agency managed to sell a parking place on Floragatan in the trendy Stockholm district of Östermalm which had an original asking price of 700,000 kronor.

The prices have caught the eye of the Swedish media and left car owners scratching their heads.

“If you buy an apartment with a parking place, you can get very good money from selling the space in this city,” said real estate agent Peter Messeter from Fredgårds to The Local.

The place recently sold by Messeter is 2.5 by six metres, and was also available for monthly rental at the price of 510 kronor.

However, the 700,000 kronor price tag didn’t even raise eyebrows in Messeter’s office.

“We’ve seen parking places being sold that were triple, even quadruple that asking price,” he said.

With a price that translates into the equivalent to 100,000 kronor per square-metre, the figure is well above the average kronor per square-metre price of an apartment in the area.

The increased public attention has driven droves of curious car owners and outraged readers to contact Fredegårds.

“I don’t understand it, it’s beginning to get ridiculous,” said Messeter.

Another parking spot on nearby Skeppargatan was put on the market last week by the Mäklarhuset estate agency with an asking price 650,000 kronor.

While there have been a number of speculative buyers, bidding for the property has yet to commence.

While the cost of the spot is enough to buy a nice three-room flat in the Stockholm suburbs or a sizeable villa in rural Sweden, agent Patrik Lundberg explained that spending hundreds of thousands of kronor on a parking spot in central Stockholm actually makes economic sense.

"From an economic perspective, it's actually much more expensive to rent a parking spot in the same area, even if this is obviously a lot of money," he told the Expressen newspaper.