Parking Reservations

"It's quite the opposite of what's been going on with condos," Horsley said. "With condos, prices have gone down. Not with parking spaces."

The average price per space in a parking garage in the District is $35,000, according to Delta. In the suburbs, the average garage spot is cheaper but still pricey: $30,000 in Alexandria and $12,000 in the North Bethesda/Rockville area. (Many buildings in suburbs where land is more available include parking in their prices, agents say.)

There are many reasons for the steady demand for spaces. For one thing, there's only so much land where parking garages can be built, and building underground parking costs a developer a lot of time and money. Also, there are many people who live in the District or close-in suburbs such as Arlington but commute farther out into Virginia and Maryland.

In an effort to reduce traffic congestion and encourage the use of public transportation, some cities are calling for less parking in areas near mass transit.

The city of Alexandria, for example, requires 1.3 parking spaces per one-bedroom unit and 1.75 spaces per two-bedroom unit. But in the Eisenhower East area, where planners want to see dense transit-oriented development, a project can have fewer spaces if it is within 1,500 feet of the Metro station, said Cathy Puskar, a land-use lawyer at Arlington firm Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley, Emrich & Walsh.

The District's minimum parking-space requirements vary depending on neighborhood. While high-density areas require developers to provide as little as one space per four units, other areas require one space per unit.

Many planners believe that limiting parking limits driving, but others in the real estate field argue that it simply keeps prices high. "It's not New York, where people all get rid of their cars," said Chip Glasgow, a land-use lawyer with the D.C. firm Holland & Knight who generally represents developers. "What we're seeing is that people aren't necessarily using their cars for their work trip. They're using them for when they go out in the evening or shopping on the weekends."

Real estate agents say they have clients who won't even consider a condo or house unless it has a parking space. For others, it's not a deal breaker.

Barbara Worth, 53, an event planner, was looking to downsize from her three-floor rowhouse in Petworth to a condo in a more central location.

She wanted two bedrooms, a fireplace, outdoor space and a parking spot -- all for less than $500,000. She looked at more than a dozen lofts in Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights and Logan Circle.

One of the first units she saw was at the Matrix building on 14th Street NW in Logan Circle. She found a corner one-bedroom with a 250-square-foot roof deck for $494,900. She was willing to forgo the second bedroom. But the lack of parking was a bigger issue because she sometimes works nights.

She was going to pass on it until the developer offered two years of free parking at a nearby garage. "Parking is what sealed the deal for me, basically," she said.

For Carla Longanecker, 25, an officer in the Coast Guard, parking is what killed a deal she was considering in Foggy Bottom. She liked the studio but didn't like the $35,000 price tag for the parking space. "If I bought a car, I wouldn't even pay that much for it," she said.

Instead, she bought a one-bedroom condo in Pentagon City. It came with two parking permits.