How important is parking at a property when you’re buying?

You have found your dream home and have managed to park just down the road for your viewing. Imagine your pain once you have exchanged and completed to find out that the nearest space you can park after 5.30pm on a workday is nearly two miles away!

How important is parking at a property?
How important is parking at a property?

When buying a house, you should do your viewings at different times and on different days of the week. Whenever you can, drive past and survey the surrounding area before you exchange. One of the key things this will show before you commit is whether parking is a complete nightmare on your dream street.

Don’t forget to try to visualise your life in that home several years from when you buy. There is no point in buying a family home if getting a family sized car and a pushchair in and out of your house is unrealistic because of double parking and parking on pavements.

It might not seem like much of an issue but although it has slowed slightly since 2012, the number of cars on British roads has increased on average by 610,000 per year since the end of the Second World War[1]. One of the things that this love of cars is leading to is council schemes of parking permits in an effort to control parking, but again beware. Depending on how much of an issue this is in an area, where you are in the country and also depending on the council’s policy, the permit you need to park outside your house could cost you an arm and a leg annually.

According to an investigation by CarBuyer, drivers could face paying over £1,200 on their annual parking permit, and this cost is for the first permit issued to a household. This figure was for permits that were required to park in the Barbican in London but places all over the UK are looking for ways to control the parking epidemic. It makes sense to try and inject a sense of reality of how much it will cost to live at your new house when budgeting alongside working out what your mortgage payments will be.

And it makes sense to see if you can afford to get a place with a parking space or driveway included. You may be paying for this in the additional asking price by about 5% but overall, it could well work out cheaper than parking permits in the long run. And you will be able to use it as a selling point when you do decide to move on.

 

If you are thinking of buying or selling your home, you may find some of these services useful: