If you’d asked us in March if the 2020 real estate market would be a record-setter, I imagine none of us would have had any inkling it could be. Boy, were we wrong. All told, the 2020 real estate market tallied approximately $1.85B in sales, a 50 percent increase from 2019 and $670 million higher than the best market on record in 2005. The market made a rapid turnaround in June and momentum never stopped, with month after month posting substantial gains from one year ago.
Nantucket real estate transactions in 2020 represented the highest number of homes sales ever recorded, the highest number of high-end sales ($5M+) and several new trends, which we plan to expand on in our upcoming 2020 Year in Review Report.
December transactions surpassed 100 sales totaling more than $293 million, the third highest dollar volume month of the year. And fourth quarter transaction and dollar volume was exceptionally impressive with 294 property transfers totaling more than $870 million, more dollar volume than we saw for the 12-month period in 2015.
The tremendous sales activity witnessed in 2020 led to record-low inventory, record-high median and average home sale values and unprecedented bidding wars. With demand not appearing to wane thus far in 2021, we’re going to need a lot more inventory to satisfy buyers. For sellers considering listing their property, there has never been a better time to list and we’d be happy to share our analytics by area and price point to best advise you.
And last but not least, to all of our friends and clients, we are exceptionally grateful for a banner year as we know many businesses were not nearly as fortunate. Thank you for your continued support and please message us if you’d like to receive our annual review by email or mail in the coming weeks. We look forward to seeing you all on island soon!