Nantucket Home Sales Slowing Down
The Inquirer and Mirror has sobering news for sellers in Nantucket: No matter how you slice it, people are not buying real estate with the same fervor they have over the past few years.
Sales are down across the board, from multi-million-dollar waterfront vacation homes to more “modestly” priced year-round homes in the mid-island area between $500,000 and $1 million. It’s not really a market for those seeking bad credit mortgages.
The number of sales dropped 42 percent in the third quarter compared to the same three-month period last year, while third-quarter dollar volume was down 33 percent, from $330.4 million last year to $220.21 million this year.
Prices, however, remain high. The average sale price of an island home through the end of September was $2.48 million and the median price $1.6 million, both an increase over last year.
Slowing regional sales: Nevertheless, the banner years of 2004 and 2005 - when total-dollar volume exceeded a billion dollars - have been replaced this year by a more sober period in which real estate agents are warily eyeing the number of houses for sale and not moving on the market.
“We have certainly seen a flattening of the market. I’m adverse to calling it a buyer’s market,” said Roy Flanders, a buyer’s broker with Pro Buyer Associates. “Folks very rarely have to sell or have to buy” on Nantucket.
“The dynamics relative to the marketplace are different here,” said Ken Beaugrand of Nantucket Real Estate. “You don’t have the same pressure that you have on the mainland where people lose their jobs. Here, real estate is an investment and people are not forced to sell because of a change in circumstances.”
The reversal of fortune does not seem to disturb many island real estate agents who appear unflappable in the face of the first down market since the months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Prices are not dropping, nor do agents seem to be advising their sellers to adjust their prices accordingly.
In fact, many home mortgage brokers are advising clients who don’t need to sell to pull their houses off the market until it starts to heat up again. Almost to an agent, they predict it will pick up again.
“If a seller/client does not have to sell their property and is willing to wait, we are advising them to take their property off the market,” said Penny Dey, co-owner of Atlantic East Real Estate. “Last year at this time there were 319 houses and 45 pieces of land on the market. This year there are 424 houses and 79 pieces of land for sale.”
If a house is priced right, it will sell, brokers are quick to advise. Location remains a constant in the Nantucket housing market, too.
“Waterfront sells very well, it always has and it always will, regardless,” said Craig Hawkins, a broker at The Maury People.
Yet despite the sharp drop in the number of houses sold this year over last, houses are selling within 6 percent of their listing price and the average selling price for a single family home is $2,447,000.
Houses average seven months on the market, about same length of time since 2003.
“With the substantial increase in the number of properties listed for sale, properties will likely be on the market longer,” said Dey.
Island real estate brokers like to point out that the Nantucket real estate market follows the stock market, and the Dow is currently on the rise.
“There has been uncertainty in the stock market,” said Dey. “A lot of the reasons are psychological. Nobody has to buy here.”
Although July, August, and September were slow, some offices are reporting an uptick in the market this fall. Mortgage interest in the sector has returned.
“Because of October, this office is ahead of last year’s figures. We’re ahead of the year-to-date and almost at least year’s total for the year’s end,” said Hawkins. “We’ve just been doing well all year, way ahead of the market.”