
A single parking space in a luxury development in Hong Kong has sold for $765K - uptown
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-05/hong-kong-car-owners-get-squeezed-with-765-000-parking-spaces
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djaychela
Where I live (Bournemouth, UK), the beach is popular, and beach huts (if
you're not familiar with this idea, it's basically a wooden shed that you can
use while you visit the beach but not sleep in all year round) are hugely
popular. I believe the record for one is £270,000 - certainly a price that
would buy you a decent family home in some locations within 10 miles of it.
It's not as much as the parking space, but I'd say it was less useful -
particularly given the British weather which renders it a miserable experience
(cold, windy, raining) for maybe half the year.

As someone who doesn't own property (and is in his mid 40s), I find all of
this very depressing - property prices seem to be spiralling out of control in
many countries, and most people seem to be fine with it as they are rich on
paper (but not in reality).

[http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/14098458.This_year_s_m...](http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/14098458.This_year_s_most_expensive_beach_hut_on_sale_for___250_000_-_but_there_s_a_waiting_list/)

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garmaine
Land is the one thing in truly limited supply, meanwhile population and
prosperity continue to grow exponentially.

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riffraff
population does not grow exponentially, current population is not expected to
double before the next century.

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garmaine
The growth factor has changed. It’s still an exponential.

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anoncoward111
For reference, this is ~21 years of post tax salary for the average American
income earner, excluding rent and other expenses.

Assuming one's working career is 45 years, this is just under 50% of your
working life. For a parking spot.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Another way of looking at is: you could pay someone $25,000 a year to drive
your car around the block, continuously.

The driver could meet you at your door any time of day within a few minutes.

For 30 years.

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mac01021
I'm pretty sure you can't buy 365 * 24 man hours for 25k.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Minimum wage in the USA is, what?, $7.25 / hr?

So you'd need two shifts to cover your waking hours, so call it $30,000 per
year. The last driver takes the car home and the first one picks it up.

Making a lot of assumptions here. It was just a silly thought experiment.

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anoncoward111
They don't even need to drive continuously. They could just park it at a semi-
legal location nearby until asked to move.

What an existence, lol!

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INTPenis
Crazy number for sure but I'm not really that surprised. A dense city and
they're actually buying the space forever. Not renting.

And it's indoors.

But still, if they use it for 20 years they've payed over 3000 dollars/month
for it.

Edit: My brother said; why not just pay the fines? And googling says they can
be around 86 USD but I assume they have some sort of repeat offender thing
too.

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hawkice
It's worth noting that cars and parking in Hong Kong are absurdly unnecessary
luxuries, and this is an absurdly luxurious example of the genre. The golden
rule of capitalism is, you can spend as much money as you want, and because it
is your money, other people don't get to decide it is a waste.

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Synaesthesia
Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice and what right do us ordinary people have
to say anything about it?

One might call it a rule of “profit before people”.

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simsla
If someone has a disproportionate amount of wealth, I'd rather they spend it.

You can't have it both ways. Silly purchases are way better for the rest of us
than them just parking the wealth.

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kickling
Maybe cities shouldn't make it easy to own a car.

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tomerv
Expensive parking is a way to do that.

