With Memorial Day and the summer season on the horizon, Vineyard vacation rental agents are seeing an unfamiliar sight: availability in July and August.
Several agents this week said they have an unusual amount of openings during prime weeks, including the Fourth of July, signaling a shift in the market. They attributed the phenomena to the see-sawing stock market, the high cost of rentals and the growing number of properties being converted into vacation homes, among other factors.
“We have a lot of openings in July,” said Joanna Fairchild, an agent at Martha’s Vineyard Vacation Homes. “I can’t get people to commit.”
The rental market is big business on the Island and can net homeowners tens of thousands of dollars weekly during the summer. During the height of the pandemic, the industry surged to previously unseen heights.
We Need a Vacation, a rental business that manages properties on the Vineyard, Nantucket and Cape Cod, saw the average weekly rental price for a three-bedroom home on the Vineyard rise by 52 per cent between 2019 and 2024.
In the last two years though, agents said the unprecedented demand has waned and the market has come back down to reality. To keep bookings brisk, they have advised homeowners to reconsider their pricing in order to fill the calendar.
“Nobody is raising their prices anymore and I don’t recommend it,” said Cathy Gargiulo, a vacation rental agent at Ocean Park Realty. “If you don’t have the home properly priced, it won’t rent. There’s too much competition.”
Agents said this season is by no means a bust, but it is a departure from recent summers. Julie Flanders, the owner of Flanders Up-Island Real Estate, described the current state of booking as “steady, not booming.”
“I think people are slightly hesitant,” she said. “It’s not a lot but we usually don’t have anything in August.”
Karen Overtoom, who owns a real estate business in West Tisbury, felt the instability in the U.S. economy was a contributing factor.
“People don’t like to spend money when they feel like they are losing money,” she said.
The political climate in Washington also seems to have had an effect. Ms. Fairchild said she’s had one Canadian couple who come annually decide to forgo this summer, and other agents said clients were concerned about pending tariffs.
“I’ve had several clients say they are not coming because of political unrest,” Ms. Fairchild said.
Other shifts in the industry are starting to emerge, too. Historically, Island rentals last a week, but in recent years, customers have started to haggle on that front, looking for shorter stays and different turnover days.
“It feels very new to me,” Ms. Fairchild said. “I’ve never had so many people negotiate.”
Some agents felt the increasing number of open weeks was partially due to the rise in properties that are now available as a short-term rental. According to the state, there are about 4,300 properties on the Island registered as short-term rentals, up from about 2,500 in 2022.
“The market is saturated with rental properties,” said Ms. Gargiulo. “That, I think, sort of adds to it....Everybody is renting every little space they have.”
Not everyone is seeing a slump, though. Wendy Harman, the owner of Point B Realty, said 2025 bookings at her company were pacing about 10 per cent higher than the same time last year, both on the dollar amount and number of transactions.
“Homes that are well appointed and maintained — and are also perceived to be well-priced in the overall market — continue to have both strong occupancy and a high number of returning guests,” she said.
Despite openings this close to the start of the season, agents remain hopeful that the gaps will be filled by summer visitors who might be making plans at a later date than in the past.
“Maybe there will be a different kind of surge in the next couple of weeks,” Ms. Fairchild said. “People are fishing, they’re searching for the big deal.”
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