Cape Cod Home Sales Down 20 Percent In 2022: Market Report

CAPE COD, MA — The Cape Cod home market isn't returning to pre-pandemic levels, but a local realty association says it may be coming to a new normal.

Terrible turn of phrase aside, the Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors recently released their July market report, finding that sales of single families homes across the Cape and Islands are down 20 percent year-over-year from 2020 and 2021.

The association notes that they expected to see a downturn from the pandemic boom of homebuying in those years, but sales are also down substantially from 2018 and 2019, too.

There are a few reasons associated with this decline, including a dried-up inventory of homes for sale, and fewer buyers interested in entering the market. Those buyers, the association believes, moved up their timelines for a Cape Cod property purchase during the height of the pandemic.

Homes on the market are down roughly 1,500 a month than there was before 2020, but prices are steady, marking the sign of what the association says is perhaps a new normal in home prices.

The median sales price of a home is up 15 percent for January through July, marking a decline is home appreciation from last July, when prices were rising at an unsustainable 30 percent clip. Projecting forward, the association expects to see both of these trends — fewer home sales and lower appreciation marks — continue for the foreseeable future.

For the full report, click here.