RARE CBD CAR SPACES NEAR OPERA HOUSE COULD FETCH $2 MILLION
Six ultra-rare car spaces near Circular Quay are set to fetch millions at auction in one of Sydney’s tightest property plays.
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It’s the real estate unicorn of Sydney – an inner city car space. Having a private place to park in the CBD is almost as rare as gold dust, but a current listing is offering a sextuplet of scarce spaces with multimillion-dollar potential.
The unusual sale is for six secure car spaces on a single title at 2 Phillip St, Sydney, adjacent to bustling Circular Quay.
Positioned within metres of the Opera House, Botanic Gardens, Bennelong Apartments and Opera Residences, the parking is also beside a sea of elite harbour front eateries in the popular precinct, including Matt Moran’s Aria, and Peter Gilmore’s Quay as well as Bennelong.
Located under The Quay, a 29-storey residential building beside Circular Quay train station and ferries, the spaces have direct street access and measure a total of 85 sq m on title.
The parking spots will go under the hammer all in one line on May 16 at an on-site auction, which could generate interest of more than $2 million, says listing agent James Cowan, head of NSW investment services at Colliers.
“This is a tightly held and undersupplied asset class in the CBD,” he says.
“Reduced on-street parking, coupled with construction, rezoning, and conversions, has all contributed to a critical shortage of car spaces. This scarcity is expected to drive strong interest during the auction campaign.”
Despite the princely sum, if the spaces meet price expectations, each spot would still cost less than the current record for an individual space in Sydney.
That crown goes to a 30 sq m lock-up garage on Roslyndale Ave in Woollahra. It reportedly sold for a head-turning $500,000 in June of last year to a family that had spent $6 million on a nearby house without an enclosed parking garage.
Other pricey sales include a Notts Avenue, Bondi Beach car space, which was snapped up for $304,700 in January last year, and an undercover single-car park on Onslow Avenue in Elizabeth Bay that fetched $249,000 in February 2019.
Cowan and his co-agent Cameron Colquhoun believe the prime location is behind the already high level of inquiry and conversations with potential buyers, pointing to the $2 million figure.
“The prestige and amenity of the surrounding precinct enhances the appeal to both investors and owner-occupiers,” Colquhoun says.
In addition to the dress circle position beside some of Sydney’s most iconic landmarks and fine dining venues, the spaces are also next to the historic Royal Automobile Club of Australia on Macquarie St, making it a dream destination for car connoisseurs and collectors who want to secure their vehicles in the heart of the city.
Six inner city parking spaces at lot 51, 2 Phillip St, Sydney will go to auction on-site on Friday, May 16 at 10.30am with Colliers.
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The typically busy spring season for the housing market was a dud, and the summer isn’t looking much brighter.
Housing services companies like Zillow Group and Rocket RKT +3.78% were loud and clear last week on earnings calls: Rocket CEO Varun Krishna called the quarter through June “one of the toughest spring housing markets in years.”
Jeremy Hofmann, Zillow’s chief financial officer, said on a conference call that the company predicted earlier this year that the market for mortgages would be flat. “We actually now think it’s going to be down low-to-mid-single digits,” he said.
The rest of 2026 will remain challenging for mortgage origination volume, says KBW analyst Bose George. The question now is what happens in 2027. “If mortgage rates remain [around] 6.75%, I think that’s going to be challenging even for next year,” he says.
But what’s bad news for mortgage companies could be a positive for bargain hunters. Buyers can expect prices to grow more slowly—or mildly decline—with less competition as long as mortgage rates remain unpredictable.
Mortgage rates at the beginning of the year were solidly below year-ago levels, notes Zillow senior economist Kara Ng. But they surpassed last year’s levels recently, she adds, referencing Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of 30-year fixed mortgage rates. Last week’s reading, at 6.69%, was higher than year-ago levels for the first time in 2026.
“From the affordability point of view, it’s going to get more challenging in the second half of the year,” she says. “And when affordability gets more challenging, that impacts sales and home price appreciation.”
Mortgage application data tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association has cooled since the beginning of the year. The trade group expects that the number of mortgage originations in the remaining two quarters will lag behind last year’s levels, after exceeding 2025 levels in the first half.
Rocket’s early-stage data—which the company told Barron’s it derives from its brokerage Redfin, demand for its mortgage products, and signs in its servicing portfolio that a homeowner is preparing to refinance or move—“leads us to expect the third quarter mortgage market to be smaller than the second,” Chief Financial Officer Brian Brown, said on the company’s call. He added that such an occurrence is “something the industry has not seen since 2022.”
Prices will be about flat nationally, Ng says. Zillow’s most recent forecast, which shows how values are expected to change in the year ending June 2027, show them dropping in roughly half of the 100 largest U.S. metros for which data is available.
Buyers aren’t rushing in at a time when mortgage costs are rising and unpredictable. But those with the right combination of patience and cash could stand to benefit. “If you are financially qualified to buy a starter home, you are facing less competition and you’re more likely to get a price cut,” Ng says.
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