Suburbs within 10 kilometres of the CBD were most likely to benefit from having a place to park your Porsche, with the top 11 suburbs all within the inner ring.

North Melbourne led the way, where one-bedroom apartments with a car space recorded a median price of $380,000 over the 2019 financial year. Comparable units without parking had a median price of just $180,000, analysis by the Real Estate Institute of Victoria showed.

It was closely followed by Carlton, where a car park added $185,000 to the median price of a one-bedroom apartment. 

In Hawthorn, parking added $120,000 to the median price, while in Southbank it added $95,500 and in South Yarra $86,250.

Elwood residents only enjoyed a modest benefit from a car park, which added just $6000 to a one-bedder’s median price.

Barry Plant Docklands auctioneer Alice Geddes said buyers chose apartments with a car park for the resale value. 

“If you have an apartment with a car park, it opens up more of the market because you may have a purchaser down the track that would like to have a car park,” Ms Geddes said.

Some owner-occupiers were looking to rent a second car park in their building, which proved difficult in areas like Docklands and parts of Southbank where car parks were often occupied.

She said while not everyone used their car on a daily basis, often using public transport or walking to work, they wanted the option to use their car on the weekends.

REIV President Robyn Waters said while some inner-city residents were using public transport only, that was an idea many Australians were still getting used to.

Anecdotally she had been told residents of inner-city areas including Carlton and Brunswick were parking in supermarket car parks as an alternative to on-street parking with a permit.

“People still have a car and they’re still reliant on that car for transport,” Ms Waters said.

In some parts of the inner city, however, car parks were not being used. 

Research undertaken on behalf of the City of Melbourne in 2017 showed between 40 and 50 per cent of car parks in apartment buildings in the inner suburbs, around 13,000 spaces, were not being used.

This has led to on-street parking congestion, higher fees for parking and ultimately higher prices on properties, especially in the CBD.

The research was undertaken by senior lecturer Elizabeth Taylor with Monash University’s School of Architecture. 

She previously told Domain many of these car parks were hard to access, with governments and councils needing to find ways to free up these unused parking spaces to ease the pressures on on-street parking.

Source: Domain.com.au