Wealthy collectors are buying condos just for their cars

Car condos allow collectors to admire their stuff and hang out with others while doing so. The Hangar Group

Car condos are popping up around the country as car enthusiasts need more space for their vehicles.

Some owners are paying over $1 million to house their cars and other collectibles.

The benefit of hanging out with other like-minded collectors has been an unexpected bonus for some.

Scott Cunningham has a fondness for Ferraris . Judging by what else he collects, he also has an affinity for Porsches, superbikes, electric guitars, and wine.

For years, he admired his collection from home.

Once his children were grown, and he and his wife downsized from a house with a four-car garage to a townhouse with a one-and-a-half-car garage. Suddenly, Cunningham needed a place to put his stuff.

"I had a couple of track cars, a couple of sports cars, and a couple of motorcycles," Cunningham told Business Insider.

He tried storing them in regular business parks, but the space never felt like it was really his.

"Right across from me, a guy was running a produce business, and he had a pallet of rotten tomatoes that was leaking tomato juice out onto the street right across from a guy with a Mercedes collection," Cunningham said. "And I thought, that doesn't work."

For auto enthusiasts like Cunningham, who have collections worth millions of dollars, stashing your cars at home or where only you can see them is meaningless — it's a hobby that's meant to be shared with others who feel the same way. And for a specific group of collectors, they'll pay whatever it takes.

"These guys run out of space before they run out of money," Cunningham said.

The Hangar Group's Riviera Beach, Florida, location. The Hangar Group

While enjoying a drink with a pilot buddy at a private airport hangar decked out with a TV, bar, and memorabilia, something clicked. Cunningham realized he'd been craving that exclusive clubhouse feeling. So he built his own version of it.

Cunningham opened The Hangar Group in 2019 as a place where collectors can enjoy their things alongside others with similar tastes. Before selling out at his Palm Beach, Florida , location, units ranging in size from 1,100 to 4,500 square feet went for about $800 per square foot. Cunningham now has two locations in South Florida and is expanding to the Hamptons.

The interior of a hangar. The Hangar Group

He's not the only one offering living spaces for vehicles. Rusty Brown recently developed The Stacks Auto Lofts in Henderson, Nevada , only 20 minutes from Las Vegas. It plans on opening by August, though several of the building's 29 units have already been sold. The most expensive unit went for just under $1.6 million, according to Brown.

While someone who can afford to spend triple the median home price on a garage likely could afford a property big enough to store their things, Brown said the appeal for many collectors is in freeing up space at home by moving their valuables off-site.

"Any kind of collectible, if it gets away from them, can take over the entire house ," Brown told Business Insider. "And sometimes that doesn't go over well with the spouse."

A Porsche inside the Porsche Design Tower car elevator. John Parra/Getty Images for Porsche Design

On the other hand, for a certain breed of wealthy collector, taking over the house is entirely the point. Gil Dezer, the president of Dezer Development and the mastermind behind "The Dezervator," a car elevator system that brings your car up to your condo unit, prefers to keep collections where he can see them.

The 60-story Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, features his patented Dezervator, which brings residents' cars up to their living rooms for all guests to see.

"If you put cars in another garage, the first month you're visiting them every week, then it's every other week, and then it becomes once a month, and then before you know it, you're never there anymore," Dezer told Business Insider.

Brown and Cunningham say their spaces are about more than extra square footage — it's about having access to a community of like-minded people.

"We've incorporated and really built into the fabric of the brand a social aspect," Cunningham said. "Owners aren't going somewhere where they're going to run into somebody who is going to pester them for their business card or ask them to do anything like that. They're around peers, but they're not trying to impress each other; they're just enjoying being able to socialize and meet people they wouldn't have met."

A two-story car condo with a Maserati inside. The Hangar Group

While Dezer wasn't sold on the social benefits, he acknowledged that someone with a large collection could greatly benefit from more space.

"It's a lot easier to collect stamps than to collect cars."

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