In January, the most expensive parking space ever sold by Harrods, in Knightsbridge, central London, went for £200,000. Now the company is on the verge of selling another in its branded car-parking complex. On the market for £225,000, and with a 93-year lease, it has gone to sealed bids and is expected to fetch much more. Harrods estimates that it will equate to £1,800 per sq ft, roughly the cost of a pied-à-terre in Mayfair.

At the same time, Quintessentially Estates, the property-finding arm of the top-end concierge service, has just looked at a garage for a client that is off the King’s Road, holds three cars and is on the market for £600,000.

Parking spaces in London are big business – and developers are starting to realise it. High-end buyers are not just looking for a luxury place to live; they want somewhere equally luxurious to park their car. The Harrods spaces, for example, each measure 1,238 sq ft (large enough to park a Rolls-Royce Phantom or a Porsche Cayenne) and include gated security access, CCTV monitoring, car cleaning and maintenance – although there is a £650 annual service charge per space. Other services, such as valet parking, garage repair visits and polishing, are extra.

Unwilling to walk the streets of Kensington or Mayfair to your space? In the more exclusive parts of London, built-in garages are becoming increasingly de rigueur; and, not surprisingly, they can incorporate some nifty features.

Developments by the top-end interior designers Candy & Candy, for example, include garages with features such as licence-plate recognition, leather walls, to prevent the paintwork getting scratched and rotating turntables, which obviate the need to engage reverse gear. At the Candys’ latest project, Chesham Place, in Belgravia, due to be completed in August, and with prices starting at £13m and go up to £24m, key fobs take you to your designated car-park floor, while floor lighting will guide drivers to their personalised space.

Capital Residential Management, a London-based developer, is working on a £45m house in Cheval Place, Knightsbridge, where the parking system includes a drop-down car lift, with a turntable in the basement that lines up the cars to be driven out. The company also regularly uses a stacking system that holds two or three cars at any time, and is big enough for 4WDs.

Robert Bailey, a London-based property-finder, says he looked recently at a place in Belgravia that has a garage with a central suctioning channel, so when the car is washed, the water is siphoned away. The garage itself is decked out in polished plaster and has a separate washroom for the chauffeur.

Another of his clients had a glass lift installed in his Knightsbridge home, making it easier for him to descend to the basement to admire his Ferrari.

The trend is extending beyond the capital. Dario Franchitti, a Scottish racing driver who made his name on the American IndyCar circuit, has installed a stacking parking system with room for about 20 cars in his £3m home, Rednock Castle in Perthshire, where he lives with his wife, the Hollywood actor Ashley Judd. Computer sensors allow him to store cars just inches apart.

“Everyone’s asking for them,” says Jeremy Lambourne, the founder of the search agent Oakhall Property Source, who estimates that 70% of his clients consider off-street parking a must.

Lucy Russell, head of Quintessentially Estates, agrees. Many of her clients are not satisfied with secure underground parking. Instead, they want someone there 24 hours a day, as well as high-tech video sensors to watch over their wheels. “When you’ve got a car that’s worth up to £350,000, you really want to keep it in a safe place,” she says.

If a client uses the car only rarely, Russell will often get requests to find storage space outside the capital. “You get amazing garages just outside London designed to store cars for easy access, especially vintage cars that the owner might only use when touring France.” It is not just the security of the car that matters: the better-known clients demand personal privacy as well, which means being able to get in and out of the car in a garage without being spotted by the paparazzi.

None of this comes cheap, of course. Tom Lamb, a negotiator in the Sloane Street office of Savills estate agency, reckons that parking or a garage in central London can add anything between £150,000 and £500,000 to the value of a property. As for putting in your own stacking system, the bill, including digging out the space under a house, could be anywhere from £150,000 up to £750,000, says David Tucker, the managing director of Capital Residential Managment – and that’s before you have added the leather walls and other extras.

Shop around, however, and you might strike lucky. Mark O’Callaghan, 38, who lives in Edith Grove, Chelsea, managed to bag a secure underground parking space below the World’s End estate, on the King’s Road. The flats were designed as a luxury complex, but the developer went bust and the local authority bought it. Each flat has its own parking space, and they are now available for local residents to rent.

So, for the modest sum of £280 per year, O’Callaghan has plenty to spare on investing in what goes inside the garage. Small wonder he drives a Porsche.

Harrods Estates, 020 7225 6506, www.harrodsestates.co.uk

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