New York City is costliest place to park in USA

What if you had to pay as much a month to park your car as lots of people around the country pay in monthly rent on their apartments? Welcome to New York City.

Midtown and downtown Manhattan are the two most expensive places in the USA to park, with median monthly rates at $541 and $533, respectively, says Colliers International's annual survey of parking rates in North America. In third place is Boston at $438, 19% less per month than midtown Manhattan and well above the national average of $155.22.

There's no shortage of cities with eye-popping downtown parking rates. Rounding out the top 10 most expensive central business districts for monthly parking rates are San Francisco at $375; Philadelphia at$304; Seattle at $294; Chicago at $289; Washington at $260; Honolulu at$217; and Los Angeles at $210. If you're looking for cheap cities, go no father than Reno, which has a monthly rate of $45; Phoenix at $50, and Bakersfield, Calif., at $53.

Despite the high rates in Manhattan, the cost of parking has held fairly steady when compared with 2010, the study finds. Nationally, the median monthly parking rate decreased 0.2% in the past year. In Manhattan, rates inched up 0.6% in midtown and 0.8% downtown. Median monthly rate changes in other major markets include Boston, up 3.1%; Washington, up 6.1%; Houston, up 4.8%; Los Angeles, down 0.2%; and Chicago, down 9.7%. San Francisco was unchanged.

"This year's parking rate survey reflects a moderately improving economy and better office leasing fundamentals," said Ross Moore, Colliers International's chief economist. "Despite these improvements, operators are still holding the line on parking rates."

It makes you wonder, though, when you see some of the daily parking rates:

Midtown Manhattan took the top spot for median daily parking rates at $41, followed by Honolulu at $38 and Boston at $34. The rest of the top 10 daily median parking rates were Chicago ($32); downtown Manhattan and Los Angeles ($30); San Francisco, San Diego and Philadelphia ($26); and Seattle ($24).

Major market year-to-year changes in daily parking rates include Boston, up 6.3%; Chicago, up 3.2%; Houston, up 20.8%; Los Angeles, up 1.2%; midtown Manhattan, up 2.5%; San Francisco, up 4%; Washington, up 20%; and downtown Manhattan, down 3.2%.

"The long-term trend is still for rates to move higher, but any near-term movement will be dictated by the vigor of the economic recovery," Moore said.

In Canada, the story was a bit different from in the USA, with the monthly median parking rate increasing by 3% over 2010 to $241.59 USD. Calgary led the pack with a median monthly rate of $486 USD, followed by Toronto at $342 USD and Montreal at $305 USD. Daily median rates were highest in Calgary at $25.73 USD, followed by Toronto at $23.67 USD and Vancouver at $20.59 USD.

With the exception of Greenville, S.C., Phoenix, Hartford and Walnut Creek, Calif., where parking availability was described as abundant, parking in all other cities surveyed in both the USA and Canada was described as limited or fair. With only five new parking facilities under construction in the USA and seven in Canada, that situation is unlikely to change significantly.

Even high-cost U.S. and Canadian cities seem like a relative bargain when compared with parking rates in some European, Asian and Australian cities. London was the most expensive place in the world to park, with an astronomical $1,084 median price for a monthly spot. London's West End was close behind at $1,014 per month, followed by Zurich at $822 and Rome at $719. In Asia, Hong Kong and Tokyo both topped New York's median monthly cost for a parking spot reaching $745 and $744, respectively. Perth, Australia, also topped the Big Apple with a median cost for a monthly spot at $717.

Colliers International is the leading source of commercial real estate market data in the industry and conducts research on all segments of the market, including office, retail, industrial and hospitality. In addition, Colliers develops and issues periodic White Papers on a wide range of topics.

Data for the 2011 Parking Rate Survey were collected during the month of June and include all relevant taxes. Sources for the data include third parties, owners/operators and Colliers International. Survey data include only covered or underground parking garages in prime central business districts. All rates are reported in U.S. dollars.