Homes at the lower end of the market on Martha’s Vineyard are being snapped up at a record clip, with hundreds vying for the handful of houses they can afford.
These uncertain days are proof that for the most part the Vineyard real estate market thrives both in good times and bad.
"People see this as a safe place to be and a safe place to put your money," said Alan Schweikert of Ocean Park Realty.
Sharon Purdy of Sandpiper Realty said, "People want a safe haven and Martha's Vineyard is a safe haven. If you live in a place like a city and can retreat to a place like the Island, that is a really special thing to be able to give to your family."
Bad news if you bought or built a new house on the Vineyard and figured you could cover some of your mortgage by renting it out for a chunk of summer: You weren't the only one with that idea. Now real estate agents say the market is glutted with houses for rent.
"There's a lot of houses out there to rent," said Deborah Hancock, a longtime real estate broker in Chilmark. "We have houses that have never been vacant that are still vacant . . . . It used to be that anything good was gone by January."
A swelling inventory of unsold Vineyard properties is translating into choosier buyers and tenants.
Demand remains alive for real estate on the Island. Results compiled by LINK, a Vineyard Haven business that tracks the Vineyard market, shows that 122 Island properties with buildings on them sold in the quarter ended Sept. 30. That is one more property than the comparable period a year ago.
But LINK also reports that the inventory of such properties on the Vineyard climbed to 390 for the quarter, 25 per cent higher than the same period last year.
Real estate sales on Martha's Vineyard are falling against a backdrop of increasing inventory and rising transaction prices.
For the first three months of the year, the number of residential, commercial and condominium sales on the Vineyard dropped 28 per cent to 82, while listings in those categories rose 30 per cent to 387, according to LINK, a real estate information business based in Vineyard Haven.
The price of the typical home on Martha's Vineyard fell for
the first time in six years in 2006, as buyers left the market and sales
figures dropped by nearly 30 per cent.
The median price for properties was down to around $690,000 in the
third quarter of 2006, a fall of almost six per cent compared with a
year earlier when the median price was around $732,000.
The inventory of unsold Martha's Vineyard real estate is building, and prices are falling on those Island properties that do sell.
The latest property analysis from LINK, the listing service based in Vineyard Haven, confirms what Vineyarders increasingly have been sensing: that the Island real estate market is slowing down compared to last year, let alone the past few years.
The floors of the houses tend to be linoleum or older carpet, or perhaps cheap pine. The windows often are nondescript, the detailing undistinctive, and the lots small.
But if you can lay hold of between $400,000 and $500,000, chances are that one of these less-than-pristine homes on Martha's Vineyard - the bottom of the Island real estate market - can be yours.
"They're a good opportunity to get into the market . . . especially for a young couple who can put in some sweat equity," said Alan Schweikert, owner of Ocean Park Realty Inc. in Oak Bluffs.
The real estate market on the Vineyard has swung strongly in favor of buyers, as record stocks of unsold properties force agents and owners to begin to heavily discount prices.
Figures for the first quarter of this year showed the total inventory of residential property up more than 40 per cent over the same period a year ago.
The median sale price also continued a decline which began last year. For the March quarter this year it was $688,750, compared with $705,000 in the same quarter last year and $702,000 at the end of last year.
