Parking is such a precious commodity in Boston that one woman was willing to pay $560,000 for two off-street spaces near her home.

Lisa Blumenthal won the spots in the city's Back Bay neighborhood during an on-site auction Thursday held in a steady rain by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS had seized the spots from a man who owed back taxes.

Blumenthal, who lives in a multimillion-dollar home near the parking spaces, tells The Boston Globe (http://b.globe.com/13KqntI ) she didn't expect the bidding to go quite so high for the spots she says will come in handy for guests and workers.

The record for a single spot in Boston is $300,000.

The median price of a single-family home in Massachusetts is $313,000.

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Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.boston.com/globe