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.

As a widening home mortgage crisis ripples through national financial markets, positive trends in the second quarter indicate that the Vineyard real estate market has stabilized and is even showing growth.Patience and supply and demand, the ultimate self-correcting economic process, was at work in the Vineyard market during the three-month period which ended June 30.

The real estate market on the Vineyard had already begun to see a sharp downturn this year, and the recent collapse in global financial markets and turmoil on Wall Street certainly has not made things better.

Statistical evidence gathered from Banker and Tradesman online, which compiles real estate figures from sale documents, shows the Dukes County housing market is off sharply from last year, with sales down almost 15 per cent and prices off by more than nine per cent.

The statistical evidence shows the real estate market on Martha’s Vineyard remains in a hole, but the anecdotal evidence suggests it might at last be beginning to climb out.

Figures for the period up to the start of August this year show sales numbers and prices both down sharply compared with the same period in 2007 — which was itself a bad year for real estate.

The median price paid for family homes to August 4 was down in all the Island towns, according to figures from Banker and Tradesman online, which compiles its figures from sale documents.

Historic low interest rates that have led to a flood of mortgage refinancings in recent months have by accident exposed a marked trend of slumping property values on the Vineyard.

In roughly 75 per cent of June home reappraisals conducted on behalf of Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank, the Island’s largest lender, properties were found to be below their assessed values.

According to bank president Chris Wells, it is an Islandwide, evolving trend.