HYANNIS – Cape Cod has dodged major storms this season, but the winter months have been rough for the real estate market.
Barnstable County Register of Deeds John Meade reports a drop in sales volume and value in February.
The volume of real estate sales was down just over 2 percent from last year with a nearly 6 percent decline in total value of sales.
The median individual property sale value was also down about 3 percent to $353,000 from last February.
“We are off to a slow start for 2019. January was down as well,” said Meade.
“Overall sales are down 8 percent so far.”
Total value of sales and the median individual sales value are also down around a half percent for the year to date.
Meade said he is unsure why the market has slowed the last few months.
Interest rates have remained steady and do not seem to be an issue, according to Meade.
He believes the tax law change may have impacted second home buyers.
“I’m not sure where our activity level is for primary homes versus second homes, but our market tends to be 50/50 if not even a little higher on the second home market,” Meade said.
He said the lack of deductions may be slowing down the purchases of second homes.
“But I’m not enough of a tax guy to know all of the details on what you can and can’t get away with in terms of taking deductibility of second homes,” Meade said.
Meade said market activity generally picks up beginning in March and April in the region.
“The drop at this time at least for the overall picture leaves us a lot of room for coming back so we’ll see,” Meade said.
There was a nearly 11 percent drop in the volume of mortgage activity from last February.
There were also 10 foreclosure deeds in February, which was up about 43 percent from last year. For the year to date, foreclosure deeds are down about 14 percent.
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