KEY POINTS:
Park your car, sir? That will be $100,000 - oh, and come back in three years.
This is the situation Morrinsville dairy farmer John Blakeborough finds himself in after setting what is thought to be a national carpark price record.
He forked out the first six-figure sum for a precious piece of concrete beneath Auckland's CityLife Hotel.
But he can't use the carpark until 2009 because of an arrangement made when the building was finished, meaning the park is leased to the hotel until then. This does not worry him.
"I'm absolutely chuffed," said the 59-year-old Fonterra shareholder who runs a 47ha property. "I'm utterly stoked because getting a carpark in that building is a rare opportunity."
An agent at Ray White Apartments, Damian Piggin, sold Mr Blakeborough park C2F under the Queen St hotel for $100,000. Mr Blakeborough owns a unit on level 21 of the 24-level hotel.
The carpark is 14sq m, meaning the farmer paid just over $7100 a square metre.
The top price was paid because the hotel has only 55 parking spaces. CityLife, managed by the Heritage chain, warns guests it has only limited parking and discourages people from bringing cars. The hotel charges an extra $20 a night for parking.
A few weeks ago Mr Blakeborough contacted the agent, saying he was keen to buy a space in the building, and named $100,000 as his price.
"I knew the going rate was around $80,000 but no one is going to sell for that unless they have to," Mr Blakeborough said.
This year Mr Piggin predicted the top price would be reached by 2008, so he was surprised by the offer.
He called a group of carpark owners. Some were astonished at the price offer, because they had paid less than $20,000 for their carparks at the time they bought in 1997, he said.
But one investor was keen to cash up and bank the profits, so Mr Piggin matched up buyer and seller.
The deal reflected the premium on parking in Auckland and how steeply prices were rising, Mr Piggin said.
In November last year, the agent got $70,000 for a Metropolis parking space. But in April another Metropolis space fetched $78,000.
