Real estate activity picked up on Nantucket for properties costing less than $1 million dollars during the first 5 months of 2011.

From January 1 to May 31, 2011, there were 117 properties sold on Nantucket – total value: $147,852,469.  During the same time-period in 2010, 109 properties were sold totaling $181,013,466.  While the total number of Nantucket real estate transactions increased more than 7.3%, there was an 18.3% decline in volume.

This decline in volume was due, in part, to a 51.2% increase in the number of properties sold under $750,000 and a 72.7% decline in the number of properties sold over $4 million.  This increase in sales for properties under $750,000 raised the total amount spent in this category 47.9% to $28,130,459 (from $19,012,163), while the amount spent for properties over $4 million declined 79% to $14,924,000 (from $71,064,456).

With 57% properties sold during the first 5 months being under $1 million (versus 49.5% in 2010), the hottest market was for properties priced under $1 million, followed by those priced between $1 – $2 million (23%) then those priced between $2 – $2.5 million (10.3%).

Dollar volumes were as follows:

During this time period, prices averaged 87.87% of the most recent asking price and 82.25% of original asking price. Interestingly, the range of “ask” to “sale” varied as much as 10.5% within the pricing categories with those $3 – $3.4 million being the closest and those below $750K being the furthest.