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$54mm of real estate changed hands on Martha's Vineyard a couple of weeks ago including a $22mm estate on Edgartown Harbor, a $10.85mm oceanfront property in West Tisbury, a $6.5mm waterfront house and guesthouse in Aquinnah, and a $4.425mm three-parcel compound with pool in Chilmark. Tea Lane Associates handled two of these four transactions. These four sales combined with six other transactions to create an extremely impressive week of sales for the island. In the middle of this snowy winter, obviously many people are thinking about and planning for warm days on the beach!

Martha's Vineyard 2014 Market Review

The real estate market on the island showed healthy activity in the first three quarters of 2014. Total number of transactions increased 3% over the first three quarters of 2013 (340 sales in 2014 versus 330 in 2013) and total dollar volume was up 7% to $309mm (versus $289mm in 2013). The average sales price rose 4% to $909,000 (from $876,000 in 2013). Aquinnah, Chilmark, Oak Bluffs and Tisbury all experienced increased activity comparing Q1-3 from 2013 to 2014 with Chilmark seeing the largest increase – 42% increase in the number of transactions from 19 in 2013 to 27 in 2014 and 63% increase in dollar volume from $25mm to $41mm. Also worth noting is the strong activity in the high end: there were 6 sales over $5mm in the first three quarters of 2014 compared to just 2 sales over $5mm in 2013.

The Moore property at 3 Oxcart Road in Aquinnah was just listed this week for $2,350,000. It’s a 1.5 acre property beachfront on the Vineyard Sound  with a year-round 3-bedroom home. This area of Gay Head has been quite active in the recent past. There have been 4 sales in this neighborhood in the past year and a half ranging from $700,000 for a simple summer camp to $2,250,000 for a beautiful waterfront two-bedroom home. There are currently  3 properties on the market on Oxcart Road. It’s a desirable area due to the classic island landscape of beach grass dunes and the excellent swimming and fishing on this stretch of coastline. All owners and renters in Aquinnah have access to Philbin Beach as well on the Atlantic side of town and Aquinnah offers two town beaches on Menemsha Pond for kayaking, paddle boarding and mooring boats. Buyers are discovering all the beach and water access in Aquinnah, and combining that with a waterfront property makes for a heavenly situation.

The real estate market on Martha’s Vineyard remained essentially flat in 2013 compared with 2012. The number of properties sold in 2013 decreased just 1% to 502, total dollar volume decreased similarly 1.5% to $472mm, and average sales price fell just 0.6% to $941,000.