Cape Cod History

1966: Vineyard opposes bridge to Cape; 1988: Major housing slump hits Cape

1966: Martha's Vineyard opposes bridge to Cape Cod
Newspaper leads fight to stop span, fares "highest in North America" claimed

Gazette editor Henry Hough lead the charge.

On this day in 1966, residents of Martha's Vineyard reacted angrily today to a proposal that the state build a toll bridge between Cape Cod and the island.

The Automobile Legal Association was urging then Governor John A. Volpe to build a bridge due to what it called "exorbitant" ferry rates.

The association claimed that ferry prices between Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard "are now the highest ferry fares in North America."

Leading the opposition was the famed editor of the Vineyard Gazette, Henry Beetle Hough  on right, who proclaimed. "It's just insane".

A slightly calmer island chamber of commerce head said, "a bridge will ruin this island." Read the AP story below.

1988: History repeats itself - over and over again
Today's housing crises was also yesterday's headlines

During the summer of 1988, newspapers around the country carried headlines proclaiming the worst home sales slump in history was hitting the Cape. There were nearly four thousands homes and condos listed for sale, a huge increase over the year before.

Many experts said the real estate market here would never come back.

Well it did.

Twice since then in fact; it came back with a vengeance with two huge housing booms after the 1988 slump described below and again a decade later in 2002.  Below is the NY Times story from the summer of 1988;

FOCUS: Cape Cod, Mass.;
The Buyers Are Now in the Driver's Seat

NEVER before has Cape Cod had so many houses, condominiums and commercial spaces for sale as it has today. And at no time in recent years have there been so few prospective buyers.

3,839 houses, condominiums for sale... A year earlier, there were 2,880.After two-and-a-half years of hectic activity, the sellers' market in residential property has become a buyers' market. And the market in retail, warehouse and office space belongs even more to the buyer.

In July, the Cape Cod Board of Realtors listed 3,839 houses and condominiums for sale on the Cape and the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. A year earlier, there were 2,880 listings. Most of the properties for sale are on the Cape itself; on the offshore islands, where much selling is at prices over $500,000, the market reportedly has remained brisk.

Real estate specialists who monitor national figures on homes sales report that the slowdown in sales, and build-up of inventory, is noticeable throughout the Northeast. Ocean County in New Jersey, for example, is an area similar to Cape Cod in the sense that it is both a bedroom community and a retirement-home area. It, too, has had a marked build-up of unsold homes, officials of the National Association of Realtors said.

Elliott Carr, president of the Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, said after three such hyperactive years it was not surprising that construction and sales had slowed to a crawl.In the Northeast as a whole, in fact, there has been a substantial build-up in the inventory of unsold homes. The rise has been 28 percent in the first six months of this year compared with last year - 422,000 houses on the market, compared with 329,000 last year.

Association economists speculated that many sellers have been unwilling to drop their asking prices to lower levels after the sharp run-up in Northeast prices of the last two or three years, which was greater than in the rest of the country, subsided.

The Cape Cod slowdown encompasses commercial property and vacant land as well. In July, there were 197 commercial properties and 1,231 parcels of land for sale. A year ago the figures were 171 commercial buildings and 736 lots.

Whatever the reasons, the situation has left Cape Cod with a substantial inventory of properties for sale and slim prospects for a quick turnaround. The change follows a run-up in new construction, both residential and commercial, in the middle 1980's.

Prices have been affected. The median sale price for homes has gradually declined. In the first quarter of 1988 the median sale price was $135,000, down from $146,000 in the previous quarter, a drop of 6.9 percent.

The $146,000 figure was itself 2.6 percent lower than for the third quarter of 1987. This is by far the steepest decline in the six real estate regions in Massachusetts.

From 1984 through 1986 property values were rising at an average estimated rate of 20 percent a year. By the end of 1987, the rate had dropped to about 6 percent...  At the same time, brokers are hoping that buyers will view the market as an opportunity. ''Anybody wanting to move to the Cape this summer is in an excellent negotiating position, and there are some great bargains available,'' Mr. Lockhart said.

Homes that are selling are in the $130,000 to $140,000 range

Most of the homes that are selling are in the $130,000 to $140,000 range, he said. ''There is a great supply of those,'' Mr. Lockhart said, with 185 houses offered for $150,000 or less in the Town of Barnstable alone.

Brokers say that even though the recent frantic pace of commercial construction is slowing, the supply of retail, warehouse and office space is still far ahead of demand.

Marcel Poyant, president of Rene L. Poyant Inc. and a specialist in Cape Cod's commercial property, said sales and leasing have been painfully slow this year, partly because so much of the new commercial space was overpriced.

''Developers who have been holding on to property are going to have to sell to pay their loans,'' he said. ''A lot of space is already cheaper than last year, and it may go down even more.''

Mr. Poyant said that at least 30 percent of the space in buildings put up in the last five years was still vacant and that 20 percent in older buildings was not filled.

Brokers and bank officers blame speculative overbuilding for the market's poor performance this year. But they also contend that for the last 15 years the real estate market here has had a history of undulations.

It reached a low point in 1975, then rose gradually until record-high interest rates pushed it down again in 1981 and 1982. As interest rates plunged and waves of retired people began moving to the Cape, 1984 to 1986 became ''unbelievable years'' for construction, sales and prices... Source.

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