A booming market for vacation homes has meant less housing available for families and others who live year-round in Massachusetts’ Cape and Islands region. Some towns want to offer property owners incentives to offset the trend.
Nantucket, a one-town island about 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, is developing plans to offer money to owners if they agree to deed restrictions that maintain their homes’ year-round use. The state government authorized this type of program last summer for a group of “seasonal communities,” including the Cape and Islands and the Berkshires, the state’s mountainous western end, targeting places that see wide population swings from one season to the next.
Guidelines Nantucket has drafted make a total of up to $2 million available for homeowners; the amount an individual owner can receive may vary but can’t exceed 20% of the home’s appraised value, according to Kristie Ferrantella, town housing director. In exchange for funding assistance, owners would have to live in their home at least 10 months of the year or rent to someone who does. They would not be able to use the property for short-term rentals.
Initiative looks to aid retirees and working families
Ferrantella said in a message that she expects the program to benefit a broad range of year-round residents, including retirees and working families. Someone who already owns a home could participate in the program, but a first-time buyer could also use it as down payment assistance.
“For seniors, it offers a way to age in place by providing a cash payment to help cover housing costs while ensuring their home remains in the year-round housing stock when they eventually sell,” she said. “Overall, it supports retirees, middle-income households, and anyone committed to preserving long-term affordability on Nantucket.”
Because the town’s program was initially funded through its affordable housing trust, applicants can’t earn more than 240% of the area median family income, which was $153,000 in 2024. But Ferrantella said the income restriction could be changed in the near future.
Cape community takes nod from Colorado resort town
Provincetown, located on the tip of Cape Cod, also hopes to start a deed restriction program to encourage year-round living.
“The town feels like this is a much better way to promote year-round housing than to build entirely new units,” Nathan Butera, a real estate agent with Gibson’s Sotheby International Realty in Provincetown, said in an interview.
Butera said Provincetown officials were inspired by Vail, Colorado, which attracts vacationers throughout the year but particularly for winter skiing. The Colorado town’s Vail InDEED program has spent about $13 million since 2017 to preserve 176 homes as permanent year-round housing, for an average cost per property of $72,000.
The median sales price in March for a single-family home in Provincetown was $1.7 million, according to the Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors. For Barnstable County, which includes all of the Cape but not the islands of Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard, it was $797,000.
Nantucket’s median single-family home price was $3.9 million as of March 31, according to Homes.com data.
