For the second time this year, monthly dollar and transaction volume significantly trailed prior year figures and year-to-date average monthly volume figures. Limited inventory certainly continued to play a role in reduced volume but rising interest rates and a volatile stock market likely put additional pressure on transaction activity. August 2022 sales included 18 transactions totaling $55.5 million, a steep decline of 55 percent and 61 percent respectively from one year ago and well off of the $100M+ monthly volume previously posted in 2022. These sales brought year-to-date figures through August 31, 2022, to 252 transactions totaling $867 million.  While this is well below the $1.18 billion tallied through this time last year, it’s handsomely above pre-2020 figures for the same period.  The question is whether this reduced transaction volume is the beginning of a new trend as we approach the fourth quarter, typically among the strongest quarters of the year.

While it was unclear in early 2020, it’s abundantly clear now: real estate markets across the country witnessed one of the fieriest periods of real estate activity over the last 18 months. At first, the data was head-turning. But as pandemic life progressed, record figures on top of record figures seemed to become the new status quo. That is at least until the Nantucket real estate market surged past another unprecedented milestone, the $2 billion mark, leaving virtually no inventory in its wake.
All told, the 2021 real estate market tallied $2.3 billion in sales through 732 transactions, a respective increase of 25 percent and 16 percent from 2020 and dramatically higher than any previous market in history. Here is Fisher’s Annual Market Report…