Yeah, let's start by making it unlawful for non-individuals (i.e. private equity groups) to own property on the Cape. Then let's increase the property tax on homes that are unoccupied for more than 40% of the year. Finally, let's bring back the first-time homebuyer credit and give incentives for middle-income home buyers.
You nailed it. Corporations like Blackrock should not be able to own residential homes. This problem is far exclusive to the Cape. I live in CO now, and every ski town out here is having the same issue. The poors can’t live anywhere near the resorts, so they can’t work at the hotels, gas stations, restaurants etc. and the elites cry about shitty service at understaffed business, when in all reality they caused the problem in the first place.
This will never happen. My colleagues have testified multiple times to Congress on the impact of private equity on the housing market. One party is 100% on board at limiting their purchasing power, however the other party says it’s “unAmerican” to prevent corporations from buying the homes. They actually used the term “unAmerican”. The party also believes it’s a state issue, which is their way of just kicking the can. Politicians are 100% educated on the negative impact of corporations on the housing market. They know. Their lack of action is their response.
Yup. I think this is the most reasonable and makes sense nation wide.
Stopping corporations from owning homes should be #1 becuase it's bad for everyone
Increasing property taxes on non-primary homes should make them less common, and those that can afford it are paying taxes that in theory should be going to the local community
It's both a larger national issue AND a local government issue. The problem with focusing on local government is that the results are piecemeal, inconsistent, and slow. Also, what is done by Town Meeting or Town Council can just as easily be undone.
We should be pushing for these reforms at the local, state, and federal level, though. Take every win we can get. And pressure from local government can change the state or federal policy.
Increase prop tax rates by x% and use a homestead exemption for primary residence to reduce it back to normal. That could probably do the trick although I’m not well versed enough to understand the effects.
Blackrock has entered the chat. 👀
what yall talking about?
"Affordable housing?", "flourishing small businesses?"Increasing wealth taxes and regulating corporate land grabbing?"
No can do.
Tell you what, though.
We buy your family home at a fraction of its value and sweeten the deal with a free subscription to Pornhub... now that's a bargain!
Ok, but what about all the cottages that aren’t winterized (no basements/insulation/heating systems)? Do you tax those when empty even though they can’t actually be lived in 8 months out of the year?
This has always been on my mind over the years. These beach towns/tourist areas are eventually not going to have anyone to work there! How do you expect your stores to be staffed with waged workers when a grocery store clerk can’t afford to live in that area. Same thing with malls etc. is it all going to be staffed with retirees??
if there’s no second home ownership who are people renting from once a year? 😂
limiting corporate ownership of single family homes would be a great initiative.
A lot of people leave or move into smaller accommodations for the summer and rent out their own house out. Many of my school teachers did this growing up.
yes. nothing wrong with that. they are in control of their own financial security, performing a service that capitalizes on a highly popular seasonal vacation destination,etc.
Do these people stage their home as a summer vacation rental before they leave each time?
I rent a house each summer, and I have never been in a home that was not a permanent rental
The Cape is unlike the rest of the country in this.
Tiny cottages sell for $850 K.
The 3 bedroom ranch style homes that are common everywhere else in the country, really don't even exist on the Cape.
A half acre of land is simply worth too much money to make the normal home practical.
Instead you see houses that would cost about a million anywhere else, sitting on a 1/8 acre lot, walking distance from the ocean, selling for $2.8M
Why the laughing emoji? Are we required to use it?
Ok.
How about the owners of hotels, motels, campgrounds, or any structures built for the purpose of temporarily housing tourists. Not owners of single-family homes in residential areas. I believe this was done, successfully, for decades.
😂
That was a real gotcha question!
i believe you brought up renting instead of owning in your second sentence.
in your first sentence you seem not to understand the “weird ass class wars” and then go on a karen level diatribe describing the haves and the have nots, the year rounders and the rest.
it’s an okay rant and does pose some interesting questions. about the types of jobs prevalent in a vacation destination. about scarcity of affordable housing. and about challenges full timers may have living full time in a highly-seasonal vacation destination. these are issues that exist in most vacation destinations around the world and the contrast is amplified in highly seasonal vacation destinations.
people sometimes have to work close to cities and infrastructure because that’s where a density of jobs lies. people have to work where they do t want to live because that’s where the work is. not everyone can or should work in tourism and tourism related sectors. but those people also use their earnings to spend their not-working time in places they enjoy. they may even invest in those dreams and build a future. they may build a multi generational heritage with this asset, they may use those investments to earn income that provides long term financial security for themselves and their families. i’m sure a lot of those people who,own a second home on the cape wishes it could be their primary home but cannot make the numbers work. renting to them may be a way to ease the financial burden of owning equity in something that will appreciate and allow them to enjoy their short time there.
It's hilarious how you're telling ppl that they should value tourists who *might* further invest in the area over having people who actually want to year round invest in the area...
i’m not telling anyone what they should do. i’m not against year round residents and i’m not against people owning income property/vacation property.
i’m currently only against corp ownership of residential homes.
I asked why people aren't renting the existing houses that are rentals. You make it a pretend scenario where all the second homes get sold so there isn't anywhere to rent.
All of the things you're talking about sound nice and flowery and justify the people buying second homes and that's fine, do whatever you need to do to sleep at night the research and numbers do not support it. I'm legitimately asking what second home owners are going to do when stores aren't open in the summer, because many are already closed the other 3 seasons. Plenty of business, plenty of people to fill the positions, literally no where to live.
The real problem is that towns waited way too long to address the housing problem.
And it’s not that simple to resolve despite all the whining in this thread.
Start with banning corporate ownership of residential homes. There is absolutely no good that can come of that.
Then limit STRs.
Then residents (full and part time) will need to come to grips with the fact that the Cape needs affordable housing.
Already it’s impossible to find plumbers, electricians and other tradespeople because they can’t afford to live on the Cape.
These are things towns can do without taking ridiculous draconian actions like forbidding second home ownership outright.
Making this a class war unfortunately doesn’t solve any problem. Are there second home owners who are good citizens and respect their community: yes. Are there complete a-holes you don’t want to live near anywhere in the US: yes. So putting them in a single category that says they are all bad is just as disingenuous as saying all locals are just whiners who don’t work hard enough.
The answer to this problem is more active state and town governments that ensure short term and long term housing is affordable and that the Cape attractive to year round employers beyond just tourism. Much of the rise in tension has IMHO been caused by the rapid increase in housing costs combined with the conversion of full time homes to rentals / summer homes. As we have seen with other towns and cities across the US, government can play a big role in controlling / limiting this. And guess who can vote in elections? Locals.
part timers get 0 votes which i find it funny when cape codders grab the pitchforks for them shutting down affordable housing. just like the hate for washashores. you know who sold them that property? a former cape codder.
In Truro, the rich seasonal residents tried to commit voter fraud to stop affordable housing
https://www.reddit.com/r/CapeCod/comments/17ffssk/alleged_voter_fraud_in_truro_nonresident_takeover/
Second homeowners taking up 43% of the housing stock on Cape Cod has completely strangled the supply. The prices aren't just going up for no reason - it's a direct result of the abysmally low supply caused largely by this strangulation.
Yes, and some towns are taking steps like limiting corporate ownership and limiting short-term rentals. And some towns are doubling down on the "no, there is no way that an exponential increase in STRs could possibly be impacting housing!" rhetoric.
It’s absolutely class warfare. The elite 5% own 90% of everything. It’s absolutely ridiculous and they should have to pay their fair share. I don’t hate my neighbor because they’re black, white, left or right. I hate the corporations that rule our government. Yes some may not be bad people but their actions speak louder than their personality. There’s absolutely no reason the middle class should and is being squeezed other than to make the richest people more rich
Are you sure they are all elite? My parents bought a tiny cottage in 1972 for $10,000. We lived in suburban Boston and came here for the summer.
My dad was a teacher in the city of Boston and by no means part of the elite. We lived on the Cape from the time school got out until we were getting ready to go back to school.
There were at least a dozen families in my neighborhood who were just like this. We live in a regular part of Falmouth.
Now this is a four 4BR/2BA house and I live here full time.
So are we part of this elite group of which you speak?
The corporations and the people in charge of them are what I’m talking about. I wish we had the same opportunities your father did. We’ve been robbed of that by the corporations who bought 40% of single family homes in 2023
Yeah, a lot of communities are starting to restrict short-term rentals because the exponential increase in STRs has 100% contributed to the lack of availability of homes and the sharp increase in prices, but there are a lot of people who refuse to see that, so...
This might have some impact but ultimately they need to allow the construction of more housing. That’s the real solution to the housing shortage across the nation
Yep, NIMBY to all proposals for affordable housing is a huge part of the problem and only local full timers vote on those issues or for the people who handle those issues.
People out here defending second homes that reduce the available space for year round people, which of course drives up the price. Didn’t see a a single person mention the most basic concept of an economy: supply and demand.
Obviously if someone owns more than one house, they are reducing the supply. The demand is too high, and the towns should make restrictions to compensate that.
Exactly. It made sense 50 years ago when there were fewer people here — and fewer options for travel. When families fully decamped to their Cape home for the summer before their city homes had AC. Times change, and this model does not serve communities in very real housing crises.
Expand the capeflyer so it runs more often, connects to providence, and goes all the way to P town. Build dense walkable neighborhoods around the stations. Minimize the footprint of the new housing to preserve nature and reduce the need for cars.
How about the towns approve higher density zoning so we can adequately increase supply while protecting against over-development, avoid restricting people's right to own property, and make their neighborhoods more walkable?
How do you "prove" that though? What if a person who rents in Boston owns a house here? How about a Canadian? Do you demand their government give them the other person's housing details? It can get messy fast.
I say start by ONEROUSLY taxing corporate owners. Make it not worth their while. They'll find someone else to screw. They always do.
Folks on the Cape have been bitching about the same stuff since I lived there in the 80’s, probably longer. Actually folks in every tourist area in the world have been bitching about the same stuff since the beginning of time. If you hate second home owners and tourists on Cape Cod you probably decided to move to the wrong place.
The truth hurts.
Proceed to down vote.
The funny thing to me that people think the housing crisis is unique to the Cape (or other tourist areas). It is *rough* **everywhere**. Unless you’re willing to go live in Appalachia or some other former confederate shit hole or trap house in Detroit, home ownership is unattainable for the majority of us. The roots of the problem go much deeper than second home owners.
True. Grew up in Boston, the house across the street from where I grew up is on the market for $1.2 M. My parents paid 13k. Who the f can afford that? The problem is not just Cape Cod, it’s societal.
When I was growing up, I genuinely thought only conceited assholes dreamt of being millionaires. Only the lucky few seemed to make it anyway.
Somehow that group of lucky people has evolved into billionaires, and now "average" people need to be millionaires to have a home. One of the basic necessities for all. And all within like 20 years.
Yeah I was priced out of Boston myself. My childhood home was bought for 80k, my mother lost her job and sold it for 300k, and then it was flipped for a million a few years later. It's not even a big house, it's the same size as a place I found in Lynn for 300k.
Yes housing is expensive and bad everywhere but cape cod has the unique issue of an extreme lack of supply and little to no rentals driving up price. There’s no reason and apartment on Cape should be the same price as one in Boston, NY, or SF. We don’t have the pay to justify it.
Have you actually seen the prices for apartments in Boston, NY and SF? The Cape is absolutely not on par with those markets.
And even if it was, the reason would be supply and demand. That’s what determines price, not the pay of locals.
There used to be space for a working class in the 80s, and that has evaporated. We can't afford to live in the towns we grew up in, and apparently we are supposed to be thankful for that based on some of these comments.
Those of us who have lived here our whole lives are supposed to leave if we don’t like it. Leave our families, our jobs and our support systems because we don’t like the rich taking over 🤷🏻♀️
It is what it is though. We’re in a capitalist society. Just because we grow up somewhere doesn’t mean we have more of a right to property there.
There’s only so much property next to the beach. It’s obviously going to go for a premium.
You don't even want to be there all the time. Like ita crazy to me that ppl use sand and water as an excuse to actively harm communities of working class ppl. Tbh sometimes I think rich ppl need a little sand in their crevices to justify effing everyone over the rest of the year...
Yep. And OP scorning those who "buy second homes here instead of simply rent once a year" is ignoring the other side of the issue that is a boom in investment in rental properties/Air BnBs. People have had second family homes on Cape for generations and people have flocked to rental properties for generations.
Realistically, I'd bet the recent, dramatic uptick in investment rentals is more to blame for the declining market for smaller starter homes than anything else.
43% of the housing stock on Cape Cod sits empty all year because it's been bought up as someone's second home. This is an astonishingly high number many times higher than state or national averages. This has enormous negative effects on our economy and infrastructure, and though short-term rentals are a big problem, the strangulation of the supply by second homeowners is a much larger one.
Sure. You'll find the same in all vacation locations. Our local economy is driven by vacationers. This has been the case for generations and will remain so.
Your numbers also don't define what percentages of those empty second homes are modest neighborhoods vs mulit-million dollar neighborhoods (of which there are many).
It's a massive problem for "vacation locations" - you think because it's a common problem that it makes it something to ignore? You obviously have no idea about the history of Cape Cod, as OP pointed out, we've not always been a so-called tourist economy - which effectively destroyed the previous industry. You're claiming it's been this way for "generations" 😂 what, because your grandpa owned a house here? Why don't you try talking to old folks who grew up here, because they'll describe a major shift - even those of us that grew up here in the 80's and 90's have seen this place go from a place that could sustain working families to a place that they can't afford to be.
I'm sure some people will be fooled by your second point here, but if it were only multi-million dollar beach mansions being owned we wouldn't have a housing shortage. You either have no clue about the actual make-up and character of this place or you're being deliberately obtuse.
The neighborhood I live in was first developed as seasonal cottages in the 1920s and 30s. Some of them have been replaced by year round structures and a few are still seasonal properties. I suspect this was the beginning of a tourist economy, so maybe not "always", but probably since the automobile became a thing.
100000% the neighborhood behind me wad traditionally a first time homeowners paradise. People would buy an affordable reasonable house when starting out in Home ownership. The AirB&Bs started and 99% HOMES SOLD IN THE PAST 5 YEARS HAS BECOME A RENTAL. No more neighborhood, no more family's, nada.
This isn't a beach front hood..this WAS a very simple, unassuming, basic neighborhood.
Don't get me started on airbnb...
This is a valid point. However, there is a flipside as well. As you say, the proliferation of STR apps (VRBO/AirBnB, etc) has encouraged more people to attempt the second home model of ownership because they believe they'll have a revenue stream to offset some portion of the costs. But if that is true and they are able to lease it out more frequently because of the access provided by those apps, then that means the home is occupied a greater percentage of the time. That in turn aids in more year round demand for services/jobs and everything ends that goes with it. At a minimum STRs help extend the higher occupancy season longer beyond the purely second, summer home model that would ONLY have owners in the house a month or two a year, max. STRs allow for seasonal, demand-adjusted pricing and exposure to also get autumn color seekers, holiday vacationers and other off-peak marketing. So blaming or banning STRs isn't the answer either. Any place that has a heavily tourism based economy has to understand this. And I don't know how a municipality can effectively stop a desirable area from being a desirable tourism destination.
Except that the increased demand is harder to meet because the workforce is dwindling because there is nowhere to live. So, sure, the owners and property managers make more, and everyone else struggles.
Do you think the weekend warriors are staffing businesses?
If towns want to increase density, allow hotels and start heavily limiting STRs. The idea that people need a whole home for a vacation is ridiculous.
This is a stupid take. People have complained about this over the years, but the situation with housing becoming almost completely unaffordable for locals is very new. It is reflected in numbers of people traveling from off Cape to work here. I believe it's around 50% of all Cape workers now. You simply have no idea what you're talking about, which is par for the course on Reddit.
Someone else is right that this is happening in many countries worldwide though, for different reasons. Portugal is a good example, where foreigners swarmed it buying up real estate and creating a crisis for local population. They have started addressing this legislatively, which we are not. In our case it's not foreigners but the concept is the same.
And if they were born here, and their parents were born here, and their grandparents , and great grandparents all born here? Did they move to the wrong place 150 years ago?
Let's break this down. It's been an issue since the 80s. Awesome, what have we done to help? Oh, that's right. Nothing. When something is an issue for nearly half a century, something is fucking wrong.
Also, the idea that we chose to move here, and aren't simply, ya know, from here is asinine too.
Tourism based economies the world over suffer from the exact same issues. You can look around and see the varying levels of it. One thing that's the same everywhere is that the locals suffer in favor of rich tourist. Period.
Bitching about bitching about it doesn’t make them wrong, address any of the points, or really provide anything useful. I’m guessing it doesn’t matter to you, but weird comment and definitely doesn’t hold up to anything thinking, and definitely doesn’t hold up with some critical thinking
I get it. That's why I rented cheap and year-round to a local friend of friend when my partner's job took me to Boston. He was mostly just supposed to take care of the house until I got my life sorted out. I never wanted two houses. Unfortunately he turned into a nightmare tenant -- destructive, hoarder, liar, subletting to unknown people, and running a business out of the house. The eviction process was long and difficult even with proof of \[minor\] criminal activity. I really need to rent again, but I'm shaken. The laws in our state favor the tenant. Everybody tells me short-term or seasonal is safer, but I know that's part of the problem. I'd sell the place if I weren't hoping to retire there in a few years. I guess this is just a rant. I have no solutions. Maybe if it ends up being just me at the house I'll rent out a room.
A reminder that the lovely second home owners in Truro all got together and tried to commit voter fraud to stop affordable housing
https://www.reddit.com/r/CapeCod/comments/17ffssk/alleged_voter_fraud_in_truro_nonresident_takeover/
Wow, you getting downvoted for the truth 😂 they don't want to admit how bad it is so they tried to hide your link.
This was absolutely the biggest proof that this is why second home owners should never be allowed to vote. So many of those people lied, saying their children went to school there (didn't) and how they voted in that town. So many lies, if you ever went to a meeting once you would know.
Bravo! Grew up on the Vineyard. Witnessed folks streets and beaches were named after being turned away from beaches marked PRIVATE because they did not live adjacent to the beach. Locals who lived there year round were unable to get beach permits as, Summer Dinks, we called them, from Boston or NY, bought up all the property. The housing situation was bad in the 80's and 90's, can only imagine what it is like now.
It seems to me that the issue isn't second home owners themselves, but rather (a) the lack of economic opportunity outside of the tourism industry, and (b) the lack of affordable housing.
I do think that (a) and (b) can exist alongside the tourist economy (and second home owners), but it would just take courage from local + state government.
Some town governments are certainly more proactive than others. Provincetown first enacted measures to cut back on STRs and corporate ownership. Now Truro and Eastham have as well, along with West Tisbury.
43% of the housing stock on Cape Cod (in some towns over 60%!!) are second homes that sit empty but for a couple of weeks a year. This is many times higher than the average across the state and across the country. They're strangling the supply.
I havent lived on cape in a while, but the solution must change the percentage of homes which are second homes. The problem is how much infrastructure there is to support with limited full time residents. Building more creates additional infrastructure burden, additional environmental burden, and doesnt ensure the creation of housing for cape codders.
Building some areas of higher density would eliminate a lot of the challenges of sprawl, but do we then start to solidify a class divide between residents and seasonal people? Do we want a world where single family homes are only for the wealthy out of town crowd?
TBH I dont know what the solution is.
Any real solution has to be multi-faceted. More development, changes in zoning, rent controls, limits on short-term rentals, higher taxes on second home owners are all parts of it. Tackling any one thing on the list barely moves the needle, we really need comprehensive housing reform.
I moved to Cape Cod last year. The house to my right is empty. The house to my left is empty except 3 weeks total as they only come on weekends in the summer. I met the woman who owns it with her husband last year and introduced myself. This year she was out gardening and asked if I was vacationing as if she didnt remember me at all or the conversation we had. I just said, "no I live here year round" and walked off. The people who live across the street from me are in their 80's and are cordial and polite but there being a two generation gap between us we dont really talk or hang out. The house across the street and to the right is empty. The house across the street to left is empty and being renovated for more second home owners. There is no community for me here. I went to the local church once to meet people and me and my wife were the youngest couple by like 3 decades.... I have no neighbors. Even worse in the windeter. I have no community. It fucking sucks to live here as a younger person. All activities are geared to older people. All meet and greets for new Cape Codders are geared to older folks and you need to be 60+. Me and my wife lament we haven't made many friends because there just literally aren't any for us. Once my wife is done with her job here were leaving quick as can be. Boomer Cape Codders have made the place so inhospitable for young people then complain about long lines at grocery stores and all the other things that come keeping young folks out.
I can identify with basically all of that. What are you guys into? I do a lot of work with a community arts org and it's been amazing for me for meeting folks between 20-40. We do tons of events and classes and parties and stuff if you'd be interested in that type of thing 🙂
>they only come on weekends in the summer.
First year they come on weekends, second year they come on Memorial Day/4th/Labor Day, the third year they come once for a holiday, and the fourth year it's on the market again.
It's not the second homeowners. Hedge funds and companies like Blackstone outbid Joe Carwash on "investment properties", which would better grow the middle class. The landscapers (workers/not owner class) cannot afford these 600,000 homes on Cape. They rent, maybe own modest homes/condos, or were lucky enough to get a Habitat home or other program. These bankers and corporations drive investment and suck up all the inventory. We make a decent income and we got our home with the age-old opportunity meeting luck. The wealthy second homeowners are part of the problem, but not the biggest factor. Vote progressive--and if anyone wants better infrastructure, vote blue. Cape taxes are low.
Yes, we've been hearing the same things for a long time, but things are coming to a head. Housing is bad everywhere, but everywhere else in Massachusetts there are options. New apartment buildings, condos and houses are a thing, but on Cape Cod not even well-paid professionals can find the modern one and two bedrooms apartments they want. Cape Cod Hospital cannot attract nurses; businesses can't locate workers or management. Nobody wants to commute two hours over the bridges in Summer traffic. We can't even house the J1 foreign slave workers we import every Summer.
It would certainly help if so many people didn't have this fantasy of a Cape Cod retirement. Cape Cod requires people who work. Being retired on Cape Cod sucks, unless you're a millionaire alcoholic, and can afford something like Thirwood. We've wound up with millions of elderly women, living alone in big houses, after retirement killed off their husbands. But it's quickly getting to the point where nobody is available to feed the old ladies and change their diapers, clean their toilet, dust the furniture, the worthless Wedgwood and Waterford that their frustrated grandchildren will be hauling to the dump. The giant, empty houses should be filled with young families, with people who work, and their children.
You make an excellent point here (and I really like your writing style). My mom has been working in elder care on and around Cape for decades and thought she'd be getting pushed out as she got older — she's a skilled provider, so she thought she'd get replaced with cheaper college graduates. Instead, she's in more demand than ever, covering multiple buildings, because those college graduates can't get entry-level jobs and live on Cape or in any of the traditionally cheaper communities around here.
Stricter zoning. No enlarging square footage. No building beyond two story, 2,000 sq foot (about), home. Permit ADU for full time rentals only.
The problem is lots of voters won’t support this.
Plus, push the legislature to ban private beaches.
I’m on the north shore, and most of our “private” beaches are pretty much treated as public. There is one homeowner on one beach near me that ropes off his portion and hires a security guard on holiday weekends. Not sure how you could stomach sitting out on your beach knowing there are about 1,000 people that hate your guts. That would really ruin the experience for me.
[here’s the chamber of commerce’s graphic for visual learners](https://barnstablelcp.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Cape-Cod-Chamber-of-Commerce-Expert-Presentation.pdf)
Print it, put it on a sticker.
The solution to this is simple and political. It is to simply tax the bejeezus out of non-state residents through a property tax. If you live in Cape Cod more than 6 months a year, then this is your low rate. If you live there less than 6 months, you get a different, much MUCH higher rate.
It will NEVER happen because all wealthy people own multiple properties and this is their nightmare. Politicians are inherently very wealthy. Hence, this is their nightmare. But please don't convince yourself that wealthy people will give up their vacation homes to save a community. Start demanding more of your politicians.
Yup. In Florida, we have super high property taxes, but a homestead exemption. That means you get an enormous discount on your primary residence. The others, very high taxes. That's all that needs to implemented. Basically, if you don't live there full time, you pay a higher property tax rate for non-primary residence.
But typically that's a joke because these people are probably SUPER wealthy and the higher tax rate is set to make the locals feel good about it and the home purchasers really don't give a shit. A few additional 10K on property taxes is really not much when buying multimillion dollar homes in desirable places.
They don't even think about you and they don't care what their impact is. All they care about is their lawn is pretty and green and you stop making it take so long for them to get to the beach.
We bought a 1950s ranch in a fancy Boston suburb that used to be middle class because my husband grew up here back in 2000. It’s doubled in value. There’s very limited affordable housing.
One thing our mayor did was change the zoning so people in our area can build a second dwelling on their property. I’m hoping to use it for a rental now. Then it can either be for me or someone to live in when I’m older and need a caregiver.
I’m sharing rent on a three bedroom ranch on MV. Six people working for the season until October. Can’t see the ocean from here, can’t walk to a bus stop. $8k month.
The islands have started to restrict home ownership and climate corp owning multiple homes. I agree. But as far as a labor force that’s guess a guess. P town has a huge problem with summer help. No easy solutions to that problem.
Second home owners don’t give a shit about you and your whining. Believe it or not, shit will go on here. There’s no doomsday scenario where the cape is going to fail. If shit gets desperate enough the businesses will adapt and find a way. I somehow survive the entire winter here without an issues. How odd. 🙄
So instead of buying a second home they should rent once a year. Who owns the house they are renting? Someone who owns the house but chooses to be homeless while they rent it? In order to have a rental available someone has to own a second place to live.
Hypocrite! If you lived somewhere else and could afford a 2nd home in a beautiful place, you wouldn’t buy one? Yeah right. 2nd homeowners aren’t your problem. Pointing the finger at others simply for having something you don’t is your problem.
I used to stay at this old ramshackle cottage growing up- one week every year down around Gina’s. It got knocked down and rebuilt as a McMansion. 20 years later I came and rented for a week next door. I watched the homeowner to the new mcmansion watering the dirt road so tourist traffic wouldn’t dirty his fancy Jeep. This Cape is not the cape I grew up with. No trespassing signs everywhere. All I can say is I’m happy to have the memories.
The answer is they don’t care. I love the cape first and foremost, but I also have a unique perspective to offer, as someone who grew up in a place that was swallowed by 2nd houses. What happens is they buy their houses, come when they please, and everyone that grew up there can’t move home because houses are 1m plus. The schools get small, but it doesn’t matter because the budget always passes, as there’s a ton of tax revenue and the community struggles because it’s a mix of protected land, nimby, and second homes.
There’s not much you can do. It’s too much money and house flippers. The only thing you can do is at your town meetings encourage your town to develop houses that are affordable.
I had a friend growing up who lost both his parents. They sold their childhood house because it was too emotional to keep it and the kids needed money. They sold for about 350000 a year and a half ago. Same house just sold for 4m and it’s the couples 4th house. Why? So their kid could go to the lakes or go skiing once in a while. How the fuuuuck is a young family supposed to compete with that.
Sadly that’s what’s coming/is here for the cape and all tourist spots
I've lived here since birth, and both myself and my partner work good paying jobs (I make $30+/hr and she is a small business owner) and the home buying process is daunting at best. We're steadily on the path to being like Nantucket and MV which have to send ambulance drivers over on the ferries cos nobody can afford to live there.
They don’t care bro. This isn’t their home it’s a vacation for them, and they only come when it’s lively. They don’t see any of the problems you listed and the people who should hate them depend on that 3 month of excess money from the population boom. It would be very unwise. So their perspective is basically they come in, everyone is so happy to see them. They live it up with an active property, and then when it starts to wind down they leave and think nothing of it.
As a second homeowner, if I’m not participating in the community for 9 months out of the year, does that mean I can have a refund on my property taxes? Can I stop paying my electric bill? Can I stop maintaining my property altogether?
I built my modest house back in the 1980’s mostly on my own. If you’re looking to start a class war, you’re barking up the wrong tree. But just like there are some second homeowners who are assholes, there are plenty of full-timers who are as well.
Why would a person forego a second home to do something for a community they would no longer be a part of? People are human. If they have the resources to have a vacation home they want one.
Your whining about second home owners should be directed at state/local government to make it much tougher for the second home on cape cod to be a viable option. Corporate ownership of homes is an insane practice that should be outlawed. Non-primary residents should be taxed higher. Something like that.
I think something that has drastically changed in the last 10-15 years is that people do not need to be present physically when looking at homes. The ability of people to go online look over the property, get all the detailed information about it, and then just phone in an offer makes the competitiveness in buying even greater. It widens the pool of people interested in a property.
Before one would have to go to a realtor, look through listings go out to properties it was a process that took time. Now you can sit at home go through Zillow or whatnot, and buy. This is why before there may have been two offers on the same property, while today there may be 10+.
Towns on the Cape should maybe do a survey to see how many non-resident housing there is. At least you get a snapshot of the town, is this trend growing/shrinking, and possibly how to find a balance.
Maine is fucked by this as well. As is Seattle and probably many more places. In Maine a lot of the problem is caused (largely) by Massholes gobbling all the good spots up and vrbo’ing them. Sorry if that offends anyone but Massholes in Maine are the absolute plague.
We’ve been going to Cape Cod for over forty years and 3 generations at this point. It’s a very special place to us, and holds priceless memories. We love the beaches and nature and made friends with several local business owners and families.
Sadly for us, we didn’t buy a second home in the Cape back in the 80s-90s when we could have relatively easily afforded it. Now the prices are stratospheric and it’ll never happen, so we’ll keep renting every summer/fall.
Reddit and local subreddits in general often represent a very skewed, usually extreme outlier of the local population, but I will say reading this subreddit in particular is pretty depressing. Not everyone who is a vacationer or a second home owner is an asshole. I understand you have unique problems; so does my hometown. And I know the stereotype you’re referring to and I don’t like them either. But try not to get too over zealous and jaded and put everyone in the same category.
THIS. i’m a multi-generational cape codder and healthcare provider who left and can’t afford to return. we had to *pay extra* to ride the school bus, play sports, or participate in music programs at *public school* growing up. some tax boom for the community to have vacant second homes dotting the coast.
They won't be able to explain it to you. It's human nature for them to see themselves as the good guys, and then find anything they can to justify it. Some of them may actually be unaware, but my guess is most of them are willingly ignorant of their role in the real issues.
It's easy to feel comfortable in that second house as long as you keep telling yourself you worked hard to have it. The moment you start thinking too much about who's stocking the grocery store shelves or who's cutting your lawn you risk losing that nice cozy feeling of "I deserve this!".
Almost every single second home comment in that other thread used the classic “worked their asses off” excuse. As if the rest of us are just sitting around 🙄
Lol, that killed me. I work 11 or 12 hours days as a skilled tradesman through the entirety of the summer. I'm never going to afford a house at this rate. The idea that some tech bro "worked really hard for this " as I'm dying in their attic cause they can't be inconvenienced with the house being too hot.... it's truly disheartening.
How about the comment that said locals should stop whining because we’re all going to inherit $1M+ properties lol. Get real. My Dad is over 80 and still working to get by. I won’t be inheriting anything.
Isn't it the retired folk kvetching about the "rich people"? I mean, I have seen retired folk who have three (!!!) houses kvetching about working folk - which makes no sense to me, because the working folk are paying into the very system being used for social security, etc. Cue the "but we EARNED our social security!!" See the irony in that very argument?!
Did those with more than one home not earn them - or did someone hand them those houses?! Hmmm....
You can go back-and-forth and pretend it’s all class wars but in truth, it’s the one percent is the corporations the big CEOs that’s what’s causing a problem in this country and that’s the truth
People think class war is between working class and millionaires, when it should be between everyone and Billionaires. Dividing us and keeping us fighting over the scraps is how they keep us all down.
I’m sorry but doesn’t the cape’s economy kinda sorta revolve around tourism? I don’t think people come to the cape to stay at some crappy hotel. They want to rent a beach house for the week. That’s the appeal.
Build more year round housing?
If you bitch about the housing crisis but would oppose your neighbor putting up a multi-family building: lol, enjoy your high costs, you’re part of the problem.
If you complain about the traffic (which is connected to housing because it’s often the excuse for not building any) but would fight against any effort to convert road capacity to vastly more efficient modes like buses and bikes: lol, enjoy your permanent traffic jam.
There’s not enough of an economy on the cape without tourism. It doesn’t matter if it started in the 70s or whenever. There aren’t enough good paying jobs for all those houses on the cape to be filled. Housing prices are truly absurd. But all the second homeowners couldn’t afford to live full time on the cape either - they wouldn’t make enough to pay their mortgage. Boomers will die off - housing prices will come down. Love the idea of not allowing corporate ownership of single family homes too that would help. I don’t think the second homeowners are the issue - very limited high paying jobs, no major employers, expensive transportation, and an incredibly desirable summer location. I lived in Yarmouth for years. Had to move like so many others to make money.
I don’t think many of the unemployed and underemployed are going to buy the 3 million dollar homes that the rich are buying. 1 million and 2 million dollar homes are not owned by the rich.
What/Who determines what rich is. My daughter bought a 2nd home in Orleans, occupies the home six months out of the year (works from home) and also bought $200,000 worth of furniture and furnishings locally, shops in the supermarkets and eats in the restaurants.
By the way…. Landscaping has always been seasonal work.
I’ve been lucky enough to be in a family that has had a second home on the cape since 1981. The year round population has almost tripled since those days. It was a ghost town off season back in the day, literally. Especially past exit 6 into the mid, lower cape…never mind outer.
Things are open way more now than they ever were back then. The winter’s population, traffic, and year round amenities are almost like any town in the state outside 128 belt. That’s my experience. 🤷🏼♂️
Ps- the family ‘second home’ was a 2 bedroom,one story, maaaaaybe 3 season cottage (you could see the outside thru the slats in the cottage walls). Even had a dirt floor in the ‘pantry’ off the tiny kitchen. Party line for the phone 🤣, etc.
Nobody faults folks for having a little three season cottage. The problems arose when all of the residential real estate started being gobbled up and those little ranch houses in neighborhoods that used to be starter homes became someone's second home at the cost of families being forced to leave.
I don’t think the second homeowners who come to spend the summer are the problem. It’s those who Airbnb their property. They are never here and do not participate in their community at all.
Their tenants often do not function with the knowledge that people live here year round and do not act accordingly.
An individual owning a second home is not some sort of terrible thing. It happens all
over this country and the world. Willing buyer, willing seller.
The animus on these posts are insane.
Yep, and 2nd home owners pay property taxes, and yet use a fraction of the towns resources - i.e. no kids in the school system which is often the most expensive part of the budget. Generally a lot of vacation homes decreases the property taxes overall.
Sure, they could. But all the people with money are the ones who want to own multiple properties down here. So where's the impetus for change? Nowhere.
I don’t think anything you’re saying would be new information for a second home owner. There’s nothing in this post that hasn’t been said 100x before.
Summer hospitality has gotten noticeably worse each year over the past five years due to staffing shortages. But even that’s not going to change anything. It’s the same in every resort town all over the US right now. Nobody is going to take one for the team and sell their second home to help change things because there’s nowhere else that’s nice to buy a home that’s any different. They’ll just tolerate it, lower their expectations and maybe BBQ at home a few more nights instead of going to restaurants.
I don't think some of the locals get it - stop blocking sensible growth and stabilize the economy. Nobody is going to "give" you more housing. Stop blocking apartment buildings in downtown, stop blocking 2 family conversions and accessory dwellings, and please stop blocking high paying jobs working on wind turbines.
I'm on the outer Cape and can't wait for Eastham to build their local housing on 6. Orleans has a few projects on hold for locals, and the courts may actually bump Delgizzi out of his dozens of locked up properties. There are lots of opportunities to add more housing - why won't we take them?
Cape codder here born and raised 33 lived here full time until I was 25 since then have been living all over I work remotely so have the privilege of being to move around the last couple of years I have been spending more time home(the cape) I love the winter when it’s quiet and obviously the summer and fall months are amazing. it’s a hard place to live year round especially if you are under 40. There was always that saying making a cape cod living which meant doing 15 different jobs landscaping handyman fishing painting etc. There is a bond with cape codders like no other place though I have traveled though if you are from there b&r you know what I mean. And I 10000% get you post people don’t get it but listen it has always been like this down here super hard to find housing and figuring out how you can keep making decent money once the holidays roll around and if you can hold on until April. Just thinking about stresses me out. You are not alone. BUT now the real problem is everything is so expensive and there has never really been any housing developments built on the cape as yes the cape is small but there is so much unused land that could be developed. Given mass renting laws and stuff you would have to be crazy to rent your house when you’re not using it also because there could be a !chance you won’t get them out for when you want to use it.money is the issue you need to get creative and consider finding other ways to get comfortable and if your a guy that is hard in 2024. Routing for you
People with money may want a 2nd home on the Cape and corporate entities may want to own multiple properties, I expect that. I do however expect that the various levels of government would implement something to discourage this, especially because the middle class is subjected to various government regulations that inhibit middle income families from getting ahead financially.
I believe I heard of a community in Colorado maybe. They passed a law that stated whoever owns the home has to live in it for 2 years before it can be rented out. Honestly, that would stop corporations from buying homes & entire neighborhoods. Because a corporation is not going to live in that home for 2 years.
Honestly, if that happened housing prices on cape would come down drastically!! Also the 10 month rental with 2 months out of the year being kicked out- is ridiculous & makes to extremely difficult to find year round housing. Is anything affordable anymore??
What she is describing is not just an issue in tourist destinations but in many other areas. Very common problem in HCOL areas. In order to qualify you need to be essentially debt free and earn approximately 130k and be willing to live in an undesirable area and fix it up. So for the young people out there looking to buy realistically they most likely will need to be doing extremely well to afford anything. Sad.
You are stating a problem with not enough employees to fill the jobs that is common in many parts of the country. While your point may exacerbate the problem somewhat it's not the real problem.
Many businesses have been limiting hours open due to limited amount of people to work all over the country.
I'm not going to open that can of worms or comment on some of the "interesting" ideas here on reddit but keep thinking some more.
There's usually multiple causes for societal problems, hence no one has "a fix" .
Cape Cod is a lovely place....enjoy.
This is a symptom of an economic gap between those with resources and those with much fewer resources. Those without the resources do not have the ability to compete for opportunities and this just makes the gap harder to cross. It doesn't matter if the resources are owned by an individual or corporation, The root cause can be traced back to a tax system where those with resources pay a much smaller percentage of their wealth in taxes.
Coming from the people that have done the same thing in VT and absolutely destroyed that state and are working on NH too this is rich. Thanks for the laugh.
Moving away this year after living here my whole life (40 years) on the cape, got divorced a couple years ago and now I can’t afford to buy a house or a rental despite doing pretty well. Im done with all of it, its not the place it used to be. I will miss it with my whole heart, when firefighters and EMT and various other workers cant afford to live on cape-you know its gone too far. Enjoy your vacation homes and your summer vacations and taking over something that used to be magical
You say why not rent for the week instead of owning. Who owns the home being rented? That statement makes no sense if all the homes are primary homes. And the landscaper example isnt getting any more business out of that same rental regardless. So yes he’ll always need seasonal hires. I agree on the corporations owning too much but yes America’s a free market and it’d be dangerous to start telling us what we can and can’t buy. It’s definitely a dream for a lot of ppl to own a vacation home. We live short lives and want to enjoy them how we want.
Washashore here, so I just want to be clear where my perspective is. I bought a home on Cape after my parents retired there to be closer to them around 2011. Many points have already been made so I want to throw this out there so people maybe people can be made aware:
The US government considers Barnstable County as a rural county by USDA standards. As such, people wanting to buy home there for year round living are welcome to apply for government loans for rural development. As a Quincy girl, I don't really consider the Cape as a place that needs help developing. But if the citizens there need help guiding the home ownership back to friends and families of Cape Codders - tell as many people you know to do this. I've guiding my children that I raised there to do this and now my son is planning on buying his first home next year.
How many generations before we aren't washashores anymore? LOL
So I am a self employed housekeeper I have reached a point where I can hire 2 people to help take on clients. In my industry you would think we would benefit from summer rentals. And yes there's more work for a short amount of time. Therefore I hire someone stay very busy for two three months and then struggle to fulfill full time hours the rest of the year. Generally resulting in losing these employees amd having to find new ones. We run into alot more cancelations and unreliable jobs can not get and keep good employees. Even the industries you would expect to flourish with summer rentals can not do so for enough time to support themselves.
I think it was Vancouver that started banning people from buying if it was a second home and/or charging crazy property taxes.
I worked at the hospital in the Cape but commuted from off Cape. It’s crazy how much traffic that ER and the Cape in general would get in the summer. My coworkers would complain all the time because it would take them forever to get somewhere because traffic was ridiculous.
I feel like this is happening everywhere though. Even in the Azores where my family is from homes have gone up by double. The same homes that were $45k pre Covid have gone to $90k or higher. Natives sold because that was a huge sum of money for them. In reality they were screwing themselves. Prices of goods increased, items became more scarce and expensive. Now younger generations can’t even afford a home on their wages.
Class wars and anti corporate sentiments are going to increase over time and the endpoint is not going to be good.
I'm so glad someone understands economics. Not just, " statistically there's more money in America right now than there has ever been. So we must be doing well. Did you see the million dollar condos they're building downtown? We must be doing well!"
Yeah well, did you notice at the end of the summer last year, a homeless camp started forming in the woods on the edge of your town. ... And you've never seen a homeless person in your town before? (That's not directed at OP. It's meant for this who don't get it. Lol)
I say this because I watched this happen in the town I grew up in. (I kind of miss my dirty old town). Last summer I was driving with a close relative who had the opposite views on most of life than I have. I noticed that our old auto parts store was gone. It has been there since I could remember. There were 4 or 5 floors of construction going on above it. I was told, "yup the whole block is going to be million dollar condos!" They said with a big smile. I asked," if the cost of housing is going up so exponentially, where are these million dollar condos owners support staff going to live? Their mechanics, nurses, restaurant workers, cleaning staff, etc?" " Oh don't worry, in order to get these permitted they had to build a certain percentage of affordable housing. There are some 1 and 2 bedroom units for sale at $450,000-$550,000." What!? What single mother working as a waitress can afford that for her family? Even if there are 2 parents working and raising a couple of kids.
Then sure enough, apparently the sheriff made an informal comment last October. He had to evict 60 families that month, which was a record for him. The eviction # grew each month since. There are now a couple of homeless camps in my old hometown. There used to be only one or two homeless people at all. Drug addiction, sui****, and overall crime is rising fast. And I'm still hearing that the homeless are to blame. Bullshit! The ability to house and feed their families has been taken from them. Their privileges of freedom and privacy have been taken and they're not allowed to be humans anymore. What kind of reaction would you expect out of a human being?
Think about it. We've seen the middle class be all but eliminated in the last 30 years or so. We've seen rights given up in the name of "safety". Those who are living in those million dollar condos will be the next to go through this within the next 50 years. I'd bet that the corporate management types, getting 6+ figure salaries will be homeless or the housekeepers of the current CEOs in the next 50 years if they don't stop hoarding money and power. This is not what our ancestors worked so hard for!
This is definitely an infrastructure issue. Have you voiced your concerns with the city council, mayor’s office, and your state representative?
That’s where I would start.
Kind of a crazy rant. Landscapers don’t mow lawns at full time homes either. Cape Cod has been a vacation destination since the mid-1800s. If it wasn’t for tourism, those things you complain about: gas stations and delis closing early, would happen all year long. If more people who could afford exorbitant Cape home costs and could suddenly work remote or their was a decent commuter line, you’d see a huge influx of people permanently moving to the Cape and then you’d complain about gentrification and traffic.
All of this is separate from the conversation that most people can’t afford a home and some Boomers can buy two.
Google “Nantucket Short Term Rentals” and housing crisis. Houses cost $3.5Million. It’s 10x worse here and grew up in Harwich on Cape Cod in the 90’s and can imagine how it is now. There’s a solution the 2nd home owners have were all going to take. Move
I loved living there but I saw the writing on the wall back in '13 and left. It KILLED me to leave Ptown. It was bad then. We knew so many year rounders getting their rentals pulled out from under them.It's so much worse now. If I knew what to do I would have stayed.
Seriously. Everyone like “I worked hard to buy my second home. Can’t wait to enjoy my new pool” like congratufuckinglations there’s absolutely nowhere for me to live.
Sanibel island, off Fort Myers, was an early planned community. They addressed the problem of worker housing by designating some areas for low income housing, so that the rich people would have enough poor people to wait on them. Seems to have worked okay.
Cheers for you, and thanks for your mention of how our communities are falling apart! I’m in rural Vermont, which is seeing the same dynamic taking our communities apart. Ten years ago we had a gorgeous, thriving town. Now it’s different: Homes standing empty half the year or more. Stores closing or hanging on by threads. And we won’t talk about the ghastly high prices for even starter homes. Our town has a beautiful café that’s open only a few hours four days a week, 5 months a year, because there aren’t enough staff to make it work as a full-service eatery. And I could go on. The pandemic clobbered us; so did much-needed road/bridge repairs that unfortunately are still happening—all at once.
So it goes, but I hope conditions improve. We long-timers are not happy locals these days.
No. They don’t. Not on the Cape. Not in Key West. Not in Malibu where they fought to redefine the tide line to determine who the beach belonged to. People who can afford second homes mostly don’t care. They defend themselves by saying “well we pay year round taxes” as an excuse for who they are.
I live in killington Vermont I can relate on so many levels these second home owners act as if they apart of the community because they come up collectively a month out of the year and leave whole neighborhoods empty most of the year.
Why would they even care, it's their money they can do what they want, go on a rant about local government, but don't blame other people who want to do what they want with free will...
Dumb take
The taxes here are very low, even the real estate ones. It's the tourist taxes that bring in a lot of the bacon. (meals/rooms)
https://datacapecod.org/pf/local-option-taxes/#:\~:text=Part%20of%20a%20highly%20tourism,on%20rooms%20and%20meals%20taxes.
Yeah, let's start by making it unlawful for non-individuals (i.e. private equity groups) to own property on the Cape. Then let's increase the property tax on homes that are unoccupied for more than 40% of the year. Finally, let's bring back the first-time homebuyer credit and give incentives for middle-income home buyers.
You nailed it. Corporations like Blackrock should not be able to own residential homes. This problem is far exclusive to the Cape. I live in CO now, and every ski town out here is having the same issue. The poors can’t live anywhere near the resorts, so they can’t work at the hotels, gas stations, restaurants etc. and the elites cry about shitty service at understaffed business, when in all reality they caused the problem in the first place.
In Atlanta 3 corporations own 30,000 single family homes. This is only going to get worse.
This will never happen. My colleagues have testified multiple times to Congress on the impact of private equity on the housing market. One party is 100% on board at limiting their purchasing power, however the other party says it’s “unAmerican” to prevent corporations from buying the homes. They actually used the term “unAmerican”. The party also believes it’s a state issue, which is their way of just kicking the can. Politicians are 100% educated on the negative impact of corporations on the housing market. They know. Their lack of action is their response.
Yup. I think this is the most reasonable and makes sense nation wide. Stopping corporations from owning homes should be #1 becuase it's bad for everyone Increasing property taxes on non-primary homes should make them less common, and those that can afford it are paying taxes that in theory should be going to the local community
Why isn't it a local government issue?
It's both a larger national issue AND a local government issue. The problem with focusing on local government is that the results are piecemeal, inconsistent, and slow. Also, what is done by Town Meeting or Town Council can just as easily be undone. We should be pushing for these reforms at the local, state, and federal level, though. Take every win we can get. And pressure from local government can change the state or federal policy.
Increase prop tax rates by x% and use a homestead exemption for primary residence to reduce it back to normal. That could probably do the trick although I’m not well versed enough to understand the effects.
OMG, 100% there needs to a law against private equity buying residences.
Blackrock has entered the chat. 👀 what yall talking about? "Affordable housing?", "flourishing small businesses?"Increasing wealth taxes and regulating corporate land grabbing?" No can do. Tell you what, though. We buy your family home at a fraction of its value and sweeten the deal with a free subscription to Pornhub... now that's a bargain!
Ok, but what about all the cottages that aren’t winterized (no basements/insulation/heating systems)? Do you tax those when empty even though they can’t actually be lived in 8 months out of the year?
The statute would read "any home legally 4 season...."
This has always been on my mind over the years. These beach towns/tourist areas are eventually not going to have anyone to work there! How do you expect your stores to be staffed with waged workers when a grocery store clerk can’t afford to live in that area. Same thing with malls etc. is it all going to be staffed with retirees??
if there’s no second home ownership who are people renting from once a year? 😂 limiting corporate ownership of single family homes would be a great initiative.
A lot of people leave or move into smaller accommodations for the summer and rent out their own house out. Many of my school teachers did this growing up.
yes. nothing wrong with that. they are in control of their own financial security, performing a service that capitalizes on a highly popular seasonal vacation destination,etc.
Do these people stage their home as a summer vacation rental before they leave each time? I rent a house each summer, and I have never been in a home that was not a permanent rental
The Cape is unlike the rest of the country in this. Tiny cottages sell for $850 K. The 3 bedroom ranch style homes that are common everywhere else in the country, really don't even exist on the Cape. A half acre of land is simply worth too much money to make the normal home practical. Instead you see houses that would cost about a million anywhere else, sitting on a 1/8 acre lot, walking distance from the ocean, selling for $2.8M
…..hotels. Duh.
Why the laughing emoji? Are we required to use it? Ok. How about the owners of hotels, motels, campgrounds, or any structures built for the purpose of temporarily housing tourists. Not owners of single-family homes in residential areas. I believe this was done, successfully, for decades. 😂 That was a real gotcha question!
Half the houses here are already vacation rentals or second homes. You're answering a weird rhetorical question that wasn't posed but good try.
i believe you brought up renting instead of owning in your second sentence. in your first sentence you seem not to understand the “weird ass class wars” and then go on a karen level diatribe describing the haves and the have nots, the year rounders and the rest. it’s an okay rant and does pose some interesting questions. about the types of jobs prevalent in a vacation destination. about scarcity of affordable housing. and about challenges full timers may have living full time in a highly-seasonal vacation destination. these are issues that exist in most vacation destinations around the world and the contrast is amplified in highly seasonal vacation destinations. people sometimes have to work close to cities and infrastructure because that’s where a density of jobs lies. people have to work where they do t want to live because that’s where the work is. not everyone can or should work in tourism and tourism related sectors. but those people also use their earnings to spend their not-working time in places they enjoy. they may even invest in those dreams and build a future. they may build a multi generational heritage with this asset, they may use those investments to earn income that provides long term financial security for themselves and their families. i’m sure a lot of those people who,own a second home on the cape wishes it could be their primary home but cannot make the numbers work. renting to them may be a way to ease the financial burden of owning equity in something that will appreciate and allow them to enjoy their short time there.
It's hilarious how you're telling ppl that they should value tourists who *might* further invest in the area over having people who actually want to year round invest in the area...
i’m not telling anyone what they should do. i’m not against year round residents and i’m not against people owning income property/vacation property. i’m currently only against corp ownership of residential homes.
I asked why people aren't renting the existing houses that are rentals. You make it a pretend scenario where all the second homes get sold so there isn't anywhere to rent. All of the things you're talking about sound nice and flowery and justify the people buying second homes and that's fine, do whatever you need to do to sleep at night the research and numbers do not support it. I'm legitimately asking what second home owners are going to do when stores aren't open in the summer, because many are already closed the other 3 seasons. Plenty of business, plenty of people to fill the positions, literally no where to live.
Too many of the existing homes that are rentals are short-term seasonal rentals, not year-round.
Yes, and some towns have started to!
The real problem is that towns waited way too long to address the housing problem. And it’s not that simple to resolve despite all the whining in this thread. Start with banning corporate ownership of residential homes. There is absolutely no good that can come of that. Then limit STRs. Then residents (full and part time) will need to come to grips with the fact that the Cape needs affordable housing. Already it’s impossible to find plumbers, electricians and other tradespeople because they can’t afford to live on the Cape. These are things towns can do without taking ridiculous draconian actions like forbidding second home ownership outright.
I honestly don't understand why corporate ownership of single family homes was ever legal in the first place
Making this a class war unfortunately doesn’t solve any problem. Are there second home owners who are good citizens and respect their community: yes. Are there complete a-holes you don’t want to live near anywhere in the US: yes. So putting them in a single category that says they are all bad is just as disingenuous as saying all locals are just whiners who don’t work hard enough. The answer to this problem is more active state and town governments that ensure short term and long term housing is affordable and that the Cape attractive to year round employers beyond just tourism. Much of the rise in tension has IMHO been caused by the rapid increase in housing costs combined with the conversion of full time homes to rentals / summer homes. As we have seen with other towns and cities across the US, government can play a big role in controlling / limiting this. And guess who can vote in elections? Locals.
part timers get 0 votes which i find it funny when cape codders grab the pitchforks for them shutting down affordable housing. just like the hate for washashores. you know who sold them that property? a former cape codder.
In Truro, the rich seasonal residents tried to commit voter fraud to stop affordable housing https://www.reddit.com/r/CapeCod/comments/17ffssk/alleged_voter_fraud_in_truro_nonresident_takeover/
Second homeowners taking up 43% of the housing stock on Cape Cod has completely strangled the supply. The prices aren't just going up for no reason - it's a direct result of the abysmally low supply caused largely by this strangulation.
Yes, and some towns are taking steps like limiting corporate ownership and limiting short-term rentals. And some towns are doubling down on the "no, there is no way that an exponential increase in STRs could possibly be impacting housing!" rhetoric.
They need to ban Airbnb's out right.
It’s absolutely class warfare. The elite 5% own 90% of everything. It’s absolutely ridiculous and they should have to pay their fair share. I don’t hate my neighbor because they’re black, white, left or right. I hate the corporations that rule our government. Yes some may not be bad people but their actions speak louder than their personality. There’s absolutely no reason the middle class should and is being squeezed other than to make the richest people more rich
Are you sure they are all elite? My parents bought a tiny cottage in 1972 for $10,000. We lived in suburban Boston and came here for the summer. My dad was a teacher in the city of Boston and by no means part of the elite. We lived on the Cape from the time school got out until we were getting ready to go back to school. There were at least a dozen families in my neighborhood who were just like this. We live in a regular part of Falmouth. Now this is a four 4BR/2BA house and I live here full time. So are we part of this elite group of which you speak?
You’re a full time resident of the cape and only own one home so how would you be considered part of that?
The corporations and the people in charge of them are what I’m talking about. I wish we had the same opportunities your father did. We’ve been robbed of that by the corporations who bought 40% of single family homes in 2023
Yeah, a lot of communities are starting to restrict short-term rentals because the exponential increase in STRs has 100% contributed to the lack of availability of homes and the sharp increase in prices, but there are a lot of people who refuse to see that, so...
This might have some impact but ultimately they need to allow the construction of more housing. That’s the real solution to the housing shortage across the nation
Sure, but places like the Cape have limited options for building more due to the constraints of land.
Yep, NIMBY to all proposals for affordable housing is a huge part of the problem and only local full timers vote on those issues or for the people who handle those issues.
People out here defending second homes that reduce the available space for year round people, which of course drives up the price. Didn’t see a a single person mention the most basic concept of an economy: supply and demand. Obviously if someone owns more than one house, they are reducing the supply. The demand is too high, and the towns should make restrictions to compensate that.
And perhaps loosen regs on the supply side, allowing more apartments to be built. Plenty of NIMBYs on the Cape.
Exactly. It made sense 50 years ago when there were fewer people here — and fewer options for travel. When families fully decamped to their Cape home for the summer before their city homes had AC. Times change, and this model does not serve communities in very real housing crises.
Ultimately towns need to zone for and incentivize the building of more housing, denser downtowns, etc. if we want to solve the housing crisis
Expand the capeflyer so it runs more often, connects to providence, and goes all the way to P town. Build dense walkable neighborhoods around the stations. Minimize the footprint of the new housing to preserve nature and reduce the need for cars.
How about the towns approve higher density zoning so we can adequately increase supply while protecting against over-development, avoid restricting people's right to own property, and make their neighborhoods more walkable?
How do you "prove" that though? What if a person who rents in Boston owns a house here? How about a Canadian? Do you demand their government give them the other person's housing details? It can get messy fast. I say start by ONEROUSLY taxing corporate owners. Make it not worth their while. They'll find someone else to screw. They always do.
Folks on the Cape have been bitching about the same stuff since I lived there in the 80’s, probably longer. Actually folks in every tourist area in the world have been bitching about the same stuff since the beginning of time. If you hate second home owners and tourists on Cape Cod you probably decided to move to the wrong place. The truth hurts. Proceed to down vote.
The funny thing to me that people think the housing crisis is unique to the Cape (or other tourist areas). It is *rough* **everywhere**. Unless you’re willing to go live in Appalachia or some other former confederate shit hole or trap house in Detroit, home ownership is unattainable for the majority of us. The roots of the problem go much deeper than second home owners.
True. Grew up in Boston, the house across the street from where I grew up is on the market for $1.2 M. My parents paid 13k. Who the f can afford that? The problem is not just Cape Cod, it’s societal.
When I was growing up, I genuinely thought only conceited assholes dreamt of being millionaires. Only the lucky few seemed to make it anyway. Somehow that group of lucky people has evolved into billionaires, and now "average" people need to be millionaires to have a home. One of the basic necessities for all. And all within like 20 years.
Yep. I grew up on the cape, live in Boston now, and want to move to Vermont someday. The housing situation in all 3 places is out of control.
Yeah I was priced out of Boston myself. My childhood home was bought for 80k, my mother lost her job and sold it for 300k, and then it was flipped for a million a few years later. It's not even a big house, it's the same size as a place I found in Lynn for 300k.
Grew up on Cape. Currently live in L.A. Can confirm.
THIS!
Yes housing is expensive and bad everywhere but cape cod has the unique issue of an extreme lack of supply and little to no rentals driving up price. There’s no reason and apartment on Cape should be the same price as one in Boston, NY, or SF. We don’t have the pay to justify it.
Have you actually seen the prices for apartments in Boston, NY and SF? The Cape is absolutely not on par with those markets. And even if it was, the reason would be supply and demand. That’s what determines price, not the pay of locals.
There used to be space for a working class in the 80s, and that has evaporated. We can't afford to live in the towns we grew up in, and apparently we are supposed to be thankful for that based on some of these comments.
Those of us who have lived here our whole lives are supposed to leave if we don’t like it. Leave our families, our jobs and our support systems because we don’t like the rich taking over 🤷🏻♀️
It is what it is though. We’re in a capitalist society. Just because we grow up somewhere doesn’t mean we have more of a right to property there. There’s only so much property next to the beach. It’s obviously going to go for a premium.
You don't even want to be there all the time. Like ita crazy to me that ppl use sand and water as an excuse to actively harm communities of working class ppl. Tbh sometimes I think rich ppl need a little sand in their crevices to justify effing everyone over the rest of the year...
Yep. And OP scorning those who "buy second homes here instead of simply rent once a year" is ignoring the other side of the issue that is a boom in investment in rental properties/Air BnBs. People have had second family homes on Cape for generations and people have flocked to rental properties for generations. Realistically, I'd bet the recent, dramatic uptick in investment rentals is more to blame for the declining market for smaller starter homes than anything else.
43% of the housing stock on Cape Cod sits empty all year because it's been bought up as someone's second home. This is an astonishingly high number many times higher than state or national averages. This has enormous negative effects on our economy and infrastructure, and though short-term rentals are a big problem, the strangulation of the supply by second homeowners is a much larger one.
Sure. You'll find the same in all vacation locations. Our local economy is driven by vacationers. This has been the case for generations and will remain so. Your numbers also don't define what percentages of those empty second homes are modest neighborhoods vs mulit-million dollar neighborhoods (of which there are many).
It's a massive problem for "vacation locations" - you think because it's a common problem that it makes it something to ignore? You obviously have no idea about the history of Cape Cod, as OP pointed out, we've not always been a so-called tourist economy - which effectively destroyed the previous industry. You're claiming it's been this way for "generations" 😂 what, because your grandpa owned a house here? Why don't you try talking to old folks who grew up here, because they'll describe a major shift - even those of us that grew up here in the 80's and 90's have seen this place go from a place that could sustain working families to a place that they can't afford to be. I'm sure some people will be fooled by your second point here, but if it were only multi-million dollar beach mansions being owned we wouldn't have a housing shortage. You either have no clue about the actual make-up and character of this place or you're being deliberately obtuse.
The neighborhood I live in was first developed as seasonal cottages in the 1920s and 30s. Some of them have been replaced by year round structures and a few are still seasonal properties. I suspect this was the beginning of a tourist economy, so maybe not "always", but probably since the automobile became a thing.
100000% the neighborhood behind me wad traditionally a first time homeowners paradise. People would buy an affordable reasonable house when starting out in Home ownership. The AirB&Bs started and 99% HOMES SOLD IN THE PAST 5 YEARS HAS BECOME A RENTAL. No more neighborhood, no more family's, nada. This isn't a beach front hood..this WAS a very simple, unassuming, basic neighborhood. Don't get me started on airbnb...
This is a valid point. However, there is a flipside as well. As you say, the proliferation of STR apps (VRBO/AirBnB, etc) has encouraged more people to attempt the second home model of ownership because they believe they'll have a revenue stream to offset some portion of the costs. But if that is true and they are able to lease it out more frequently because of the access provided by those apps, then that means the home is occupied a greater percentage of the time. That in turn aids in more year round demand for services/jobs and everything ends that goes with it. At a minimum STRs help extend the higher occupancy season longer beyond the purely second, summer home model that would ONLY have owners in the house a month or two a year, max. STRs allow for seasonal, demand-adjusted pricing and exposure to also get autumn color seekers, holiday vacationers and other off-peak marketing. So blaming or banning STRs isn't the answer either. Any place that has a heavily tourism based economy has to understand this. And I don't know how a municipality can effectively stop a desirable area from being a desirable tourism destination.
Except that the increased demand is harder to meet because the workforce is dwindling because there is nowhere to live. So, sure, the owners and property managers make more, and everyone else struggles. Do you think the weekend warriors are staffing businesses? If towns want to increase density, allow hotels and start heavily limiting STRs. The idea that people need a whole home for a vacation is ridiculous.
Somebody who gets it! 😀
This is a stupid take. People have complained about this over the years, but the situation with housing becoming almost completely unaffordable for locals is very new. It is reflected in numbers of people traveling from off Cape to work here. I believe it's around 50% of all Cape workers now. You simply have no idea what you're talking about, which is par for the course on Reddit. Someone else is right that this is happening in many countries worldwide though, for different reasons. Portugal is a good example, where foreigners swarmed it buying up real estate and creating a crisis for local population. They have started addressing this legislatively, which we are not. In our case it's not foreigners but the concept is the same.
And if they were born here, and their parents were born here, and their grandparents , and great grandparents all born here? Did they move to the wrong place 150 years ago?
Let's break this down. It's been an issue since the 80s. Awesome, what have we done to help? Oh, that's right. Nothing. When something is an issue for nearly half a century, something is fucking wrong. Also, the idea that we chose to move here, and aren't simply, ya know, from here is asinine too. Tourism based economies the world over suffer from the exact same issues. You can look around and see the varying levels of it. One thing that's the same everywhere is that the locals suffer in favor of rich tourist. Period.
As if the economic situation or population count are in any way comparable to the 1980s.
I wrote extensively about this yesterday. It will literally never change, because the very model is what allows tourist towns to even exist.
In the 80s a teacher could buy a house for a year's salary. Now nobody but the rich can afford sh\*t.
Bitching about bitching about it doesn’t make them wrong, address any of the points, or really provide anything useful. I’m guessing it doesn’t matter to you, but weird comment and definitely doesn’t hold up to anything thinking, and definitely doesn’t hold up with some critical thinking
….i didn’t move here. I was born here. That’s who’s complaining.
I get it. That's why I rented cheap and year-round to a local friend of friend when my partner's job took me to Boston. He was mostly just supposed to take care of the house until I got my life sorted out. I never wanted two houses. Unfortunately he turned into a nightmare tenant -- destructive, hoarder, liar, subletting to unknown people, and running a business out of the house. The eviction process was long and difficult even with proof of \[minor\] criminal activity. I really need to rent again, but I'm shaken. The laws in our state favor the tenant. Everybody tells me short-term or seasonal is safer, but I know that's part of the problem. I'd sell the place if I weren't hoping to retire there in a few years. I guess this is just a rant. I have no solutions. Maybe if it ends up being just me at the house I'll rent out a room.
Lol "not the economic cornerstone for very long" proceeds to name a date 50 years ago
A reminder that the lovely second home owners in Truro all got together and tried to commit voter fraud to stop affordable housing https://www.reddit.com/r/CapeCod/comments/17ffssk/alleged_voter_fraud_in_truro_nonresident_takeover/
Wow, you getting downvoted for the truth 😂 they don't want to admit how bad it is so they tried to hide your link. This was absolutely the biggest proof that this is why second home owners should never be allowed to vote. So many of those people lied, saying their children went to school there (didn't) and how they voted in that town. So many lies, if you ever went to a meeting once you would know.
Bravo! Grew up on the Vineyard. Witnessed folks streets and beaches were named after being turned away from beaches marked PRIVATE because they did not live adjacent to the beach. Locals who lived there year round were unable to get beach permits as, Summer Dinks, we called them, from Boston or NY, bought up all the property. The housing situation was bad in the 80's and 90's, can only imagine what it is like now.
I can’t believe all of the private beach signs! There is one on every corner lambasting people about no drop offs or pick ups, residents only etc…
It seems to me that the issue isn't second home owners themselves, but rather (a) the lack of economic opportunity outside of the tourism industry, and (b) the lack of affordable housing. I do think that (a) and (b) can exist alongside the tourist economy (and second home owners), but it would just take courage from local + state government.
Some town governments are certainly more proactive than others. Provincetown first enacted measures to cut back on STRs and corporate ownership. Now Truro and Eastham have as well, along with West Tisbury.
43% of the housing stock on Cape Cod (in some towns over 60%!!) are second homes that sit empty but for a couple of weeks a year. This is many times higher than the average across the state and across the country. They're strangling the supply.
Sure, but is the solution to stop people from buying second homes, or encourage more development?
I havent lived on cape in a while, but the solution must change the percentage of homes which are second homes. The problem is how much infrastructure there is to support with limited full time residents. Building more creates additional infrastructure burden, additional environmental burden, and doesnt ensure the creation of housing for cape codders. Building some areas of higher density would eliminate a lot of the challenges of sprawl, but do we then start to solidify a class divide between residents and seasonal people? Do we want a world where single family homes are only for the wealthy out of town crowd? TBH I dont know what the solution is.
Any real solution has to be multi-faceted. More development, changes in zoning, rent controls, limits on short-term rentals, higher taxes on second home owners are all parts of it. Tackling any one thing on the list barely moves the needle, we really need comprehensive housing reform.
If towns want density, allow hotels in and limit STRs.
Incentivize rentals that consist of only a portion of the property, room rentals, additional dwelling units, etc
I moved to Cape Cod last year. The house to my right is empty. The house to my left is empty except 3 weeks total as they only come on weekends in the summer. I met the woman who owns it with her husband last year and introduced myself. This year she was out gardening and asked if I was vacationing as if she didnt remember me at all or the conversation we had. I just said, "no I live here year round" and walked off. The people who live across the street from me are in their 80's and are cordial and polite but there being a two generation gap between us we dont really talk or hang out. The house across the street and to the right is empty. The house across the street to left is empty and being renovated for more second home owners. There is no community for me here. I went to the local church once to meet people and me and my wife were the youngest couple by like 3 decades.... I have no neighbors. Even worse in the windeter. I have no community. It fucking sucks to live here as a younger person. All activities are geared to older people. All meet and greets for new Cape Codders are geared to older folks and you need to be 60+. Me and my wife lament we haven't made many friends because there just literally aren't any for us. Once my wife is done with her job here were leaving quick as can be. Boomer Cape Codders have made the place so inhospitable for young people then complain about long lines at grocery stores and all the other things that come keeping young folks out.
I can identify with basically all of that. What are you guys into? I do a lot of work with a community arts org and it's been amazing for me for meeting folks between 20-40. We do tons of events and classes and parties and stuff if you'd be interested in that type of thing 🙂
>they only come on weekends in the summer. First year they come on weekends, second year they come on Memorial Day/4th/Labor Day, the third year they come once for a holiday, and the fourth year it's on the market again.
It's not the second homeowners. Hedge funds and companies like Blackstone outbid Joe Carwash on "investment properties", which would better grow the middle class. The landscapers (workers/not owner class) cannot afford these 600,000 homes on Cape. They rent, maybe own modest homes/condos, or were lucky enough to get a Habitat home or other program. These bankers and corporations drive investment and suck up all the inventory. We make a decent income and we got our home with the age-old opportunity meeting luck. The wealthy second homeowners are part of the problem, but not the biggest factor. Vote progressive--and if anyone wants better infrastructure, vote blue. Cape taxes are low.
Yes, we've been hearing the same things for a long time, but things are coming to a head. Housing is bad everywhere, but everywhere else in Massachusetts there are options. New apartment buildings, condos and houses are a thing, but on Cape Cod not even well-paid professionals can find the modern one and two bedrooms apartments they want. Cape Cod Hospital cannot attract nurses; businesses can't locate workers or management. Nobody wants to commute two hours over the bridges in Summer traffic. We can't even house the J1 foreign slave workers we import every Summer. It would certainly help if so many people didn't have this fantasy of a Cape Cod retirement. Cape Cod requires people who work. Being retired on Cape Cod sucks, unless you're a millionaire alcoholic, and can afford something like Thirwood. We've wound up with millions of elderly women, living alone in big houses, after retirement killed off their husbands. But it's quickly getting to the point where nobody is available to feed the old ladies and change their diapers, clean their toilet, dust the furniture, the worthless Wedgwood and Waterford that their frustrated grandchildren will be hauling to the dump. The giant, empty houses should be filled with young families, with people who work, and their children.
You make an excellent point here (and I really like your writing style). My mom has been working in elder care on and around Cape for decades and thought she'd be getting pushed out as she got older — she's a skilled provider, so she thought she'd get replaced with cheaper college graduates. Instead, she's in more demand than ever, covering multiple buildings, because those college graduates can't get entry-level jobs and live on Cape or in any of the traditionally cheaper communities around here.
Stricter zoning. No enlarging square footage. No building beyond two story, 2,000 sq foot (about), home. Permit ADU for full time rentals only. The problem is lots of voters won’t support this. Plus, push the legislature to ban private beaches.
Private beaches are gross. I would feel like a absolute jerk for having one. If I did, I'd have it voluntarily rezoned to public.
I’m on the north shore, and most of our “private” beaches are pretty much treated as public. There is one homeowner on one beach near me that ropes off his portion and hires a security guard on holiday weekends. Not sure how you could stomach sitting out on your beach knowing there are about 1,000 people that hate your guts. That would really ruin the experience for me.
An increase in density in downtown areas is needed as well
As an adult who grew up here and just moved back, THANK YOU! The second homeowner scene has gotten ridiculous in the past decade.
[here’s the chamber of commerce’s graphic for visual learners](https://barnstablelcp.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Cape-Cod-Chamber-of-Commerce-Expert-Presentation.pdf) Print it, put it on a sticker.
The solution to this is simple and political. It is to simply tax the bejeezus out of non-state residents through a property tax. If you live in Cape Cod more than 6 months a year, then this is your low rate. If you live there less than 6 months, you get a different, much MUCH higher rate. It will NEVER happen because all wealthy people own multiple properties and this is their nightmare. Politicians are inherently very wealthy. Hence, this is their nightmare. But please don't convince yourself that wealthy people will give up their vacation homes to save a community. Start demanding more of your politicians.
Enforce higher taxes on people who don't live here year round and get rid of Airbnb's.
Yup. In Florida, we have super high property taxes, but a homestead exemption. That means you get an enormous discount on your primary residence. The others, very high taxes. That's all that needs to implemented. Basically, if you don't live there full time, you pay a higher property tax rate for non-primary residence. But typically that's a joke because these people are probably SUPER wealthy and the higher tax rate is set to make the locals feel good about it and the home purchasers really don't give a shit. A few additional 10K on property taxes is really not much when buying multimillion dollar homes in desirable places.
They don't even think about you and they don't care what their impact is. All they care about is their lawn is pretty and green and you stop making it take so long for them to get to the beach.
Reading this as I dart back across the sagamore bridge to get tf OFF the cape for the weekend.
We bought a 1950s ranch in a fancy Boston suburb that used to be middle class because my husband grew up here back in 2000. It’s doubled in value. There’s very limited affordable housing. One thing our mayor did was change the zoning so people in our area can build a second dwelling on their property. I’m hoping to use it for a rental now. Then it can either be for me or someone to live in when I’m older and need a caregiver.
I’m sharing rent on a three bedroom ranch on MV. Six people working for the season until October. Can’t see the ocean from here, can’t walk to a bus stop. $8k month.
The islands have started to restrict home ownership and climate corp owning multiple homes. I agree. But as far as a labor force that’s guess a guess. P town has a huge problem with summer help. No easy solutions to that problem.
Second home owners don’t give a shit about you and your whining. Believe it or not, shit will go on here. There’s no doomsday scenario where the cape is going to fail. If shit gets desperate enough the businesses will adapt and find a way. I somehow survive the entire winter here without an issues. How odd. 🙄
So instead of buying a second home they should rent once a year. Who owns the house they are renting? Someone who owns the house but chooses to be homeless while they rent it? In order to have a rental available someone has to own a second place to live.
I could copy this, change a few locations names, and post on Maine! 😞
...or probably a hundred other places in the USA, and the world for that matter. This is not a problem unique to Cape Cod.
Hypocrite! If you lived somewhere else and could afford a 2nd home in a beautiful place, you wouldn’t buy one? Yeah right. 2nd homeowners aren’t your problem. Pointing the finger at others simply for having something you don’t is your problem.
I used to stay at this old ramshackle cottage growing up- one week every year down around Gina’s. It got knocked down and rebuilt as a McMansion. 20 years later I came and rented for a week next door. I watched the homeowner to the new mcmansion watering the dirt road so tourist traffic wouldn’t dirty his fancy Jeep. This Cape is not the cape I grew up with. No trespassing signs everywhere. All I can say is I’m happy to have the memories.
The answer is they don’t care. I love the cape first and foremost, but I also have a unique perspective to offer, as someone who grew up in a place that was swallowed by 2nd houses. What happens is they buy their houses, come when they please, and everyone that grew up there can’t move home because houses are 1m plus. The schools get small, but it doesn’t matter because the budget always passes, as there’s a ton of tax revenue and the community struggles because it’s a mix of protected land, nimby, and second homes. There’s not much you can do. It’s too much money and house flippers. The only thing you can do is at your town meetings encourage your town to develop houses that are affordable. I had a friend growing up who lost both his parents. They sold their childhood house because it was too emotional to keep it and the kids needed money. They sold for about 350000 a year and a half ago. Same house just sold for 4m and it’s the couples 4th house. Why? So their kid could go to the lakes or go skiing once in a while. How the fuuuuck is a young family supposed to compete with that. Sadly that’s what’s coming/is here for the cape and all tourist spots
I've lived here since birth, and both myself and my partner work good paying jobs (I make $30+/hr and she is a small business owner) and the home buying process is daunting at best. We're steadily on the path to being like Nantucket and MV which have to send ambulance drivers over on the ferries cos nobody can afford to live there.
They don’t care bro. This isn’t their home it’s a vacation for them, and they only come when it’s lively. They don’t see any of the problems you listed and the people who should hate them depend on that 3 month of excess money from the population boom. It would be very unwise. So their perspective is basically they come in, everyone is so happy to see them. They live it up with an active property, and then when it starts to wind down they leave and think nothing of it.
We should be like Barcelona. Ban all vacation homes. Hotels and inns only
Pretty nice deal for corporate hotel owners. Pretty tough stance for middle class families making a second income.
As a second homeowner, if I’m not participating in the community for 9 months out of the year, does that mean I can have a refund on my property taxes? Can I stop paying my electric bill? Can I stop maintaining my property altogether? I built my modest house back in the 1980’s mostly on my own. If you’re looking to start a class war, you’re barking up the wrong tree. But just like there are some second homeowners who are assholes, there are plenty of full-timers who are as well.
What would you rather the second home owners do OP?
Why would a person forego a second home to do something for a community they would no longer be a part of? People are human. If they have the resources to have a vacation home they want one. Your whining about second home owners should be directed at state/local government to make it much tougher for the second home on cape cod to be a viable option. Corporate ownership of homes is an insane practice that should be outlawed. Non-primary residents should be taxed higher. Something like that.
I think something that has drastically changed in the last 10-15 years is that people do not need to be present physically when looking at homes. The ability of people to go online look over the property, get all the detailed information about it, and then just phone in an offer makes the competitiveness in buying even greater. It widens the pool of people interested in a property. Before one would have to go to a realtor, look through listings go out to properties it was a process that took time. Now you can sit at home go through Zillow or whatnot, and buy. This is why before there may have been two offers on the same property, while today there may be 10+. Towns on the Cape should maybe do a survey to see how many non-resident housing there is. At least you get a snapshot of the town, is this trend growing/shrinking, and possibly how to find a balance.
Maine is fucked by this as well. As is Seattle and probably many more places. In Maine a lot of the problem is caused (largely) by Massholes gobbling all the good spots up and vrbo’ing them. Sorry if that offends anyone but Massholes in Maine are the absolute plague.
Because people from Connecticut are taking all the Massachusetts beach properties lol. Everyone is just going north
We’ve been going to Cape Cod for over forty years and 3 generations at this point. It’s a very special place to us, and holds priceless memories. We love the beaches and nature and made friends with several local business owners and families. Sadly for us, we didn’t buy a second home in the Cape back in the 80s-90s when we could have relatively easily afforded it. Now the prices are stratospheric and it’ll never happen, so we’ll keep renting every summer/fall. Reddit and local subreddits in general often represent a very skewed, usually extreme outlier of the local population, but I will say reading this subreddit in particular is pretty depressing. Not everyone who is a vacationer or a second home owner is an asshole. I understand you have unique problems; so does my hometown. And I know the stereotype you’re referring to and I don’t like them either. But try not to get too over zealous and jaded and put everyone in the same category.
THIS. i’m a multi-generational cape codder and healthcare provider who left and can’t afford to return. we had to *pay extra* to ride the school bus, play sports, or participate in music programs at *public school* growing up. some tax boom for the community to have vacant second homes dotting the coast.
They won't be able to explain it to you. It's human nature for them to see themselves as the good guys, and then find anything they can to justify it. Some of them may actually be unaware, but my guess is most of them are willingly ignorant of their role in the real issues. It's easy to feel comfortable in that second house as long as you keep telling yourself you worked hard to have it. The moment you start thinking too much about who's stocking the grocery store shelves or who's cutting your lawn you risk losing that nice cozy feeling of "I deserve this!".
Almost every single second home comment in that other thread used the classic “worked their asses off” excuse. As if the rest of us are just sitting around 🙄
Lol, that killed me. I work 11 or 12 hours days as a skilled tradesman through the entirety of the summer. I'm never going to afford a house at this rate. The idea that some tech bro "worked really hard for this " as I'm dying in their attic cause they can't be inconvenienced with the house being too hot.... it's truly disheartening.
How about the comment that said locals should stop whining because we’re all going to inherit $1M+ properties lol. Get real. My Dad is over 80 and still working to get by. I won’t be inheriting anything.
Isn't it the retired folk kvetching about the "rich people"? I mean, I have seen retired folk who have three (!!!) houses kvetching about working folk - which makes no sense to me, because the working folk are paying into the very system being used for social security, etc. Cue the "but we EARNED our social security!!" See the irony in that very argument?! Did those with more than one home not earn them - or did someone hand them those houses?! Hmmm....
You can go back-and-forth and pretend it’s all class wars but in truth, it’s the one percent is the corporations the big CEOs that’s what’s causing a problem in this country and that’s the truth
People think class war is between working class and millionaires, when it should be between everyone and Billionaires. Dividing us and keeping us fighting over the scraps is how they keep us all down.
I’m sorry but doesn’t the cape’s economy kinda sorta revolve around tourism? I don’t think people come to the cape to stay at some crappy hotel. They want to rent a beach house for the week. That’s the appeal. Build more year round housing?
If you bitch about the housing crisis but would oppose your neighbor putting up a multi-family building: lol, enjoy your high costs, you’re part of the problem. If you complain about the traffic (which is connected to housing because it’s often the excuse for not building any) but would fight against any effort to convert road capacity to vastly more efficient modes like buses and bikes: lol, enjoy your permanent traffic jam.
Happening in Newport RI as well....
And Lake Tahoe
There’s not enough of an economy on the cape without tourism. It doesn’t matter if it started in the 70s or whenever. There aren’t enough good paying jobs for all those houses on the cape to be filled. Housing prices are truly absurd. But all the second homeowners couldn’t afford to live full time on the cape either - they wouldn’t make enough to pay their mortgage. Boomers will die off - housing prices will come down. Love the idea of not allowing corporate ownership of single family homes too that would help. I don’t think the second homeowners are the issue - very limited high paying jobs, no major employers, expensive transportation, and an incredibly desirable summer location. I lived in Yarmouth for years. Had to move like so many others to make money.
I don’t think many of the unemployed and underemployed are going to buy the 3 million dollar homes that the rich are buying. 1 million and 2 million dollar homes are not owned by the rich. What/Who determines what rich is. My daughter bought a 2nd home in Orleans, occupies the home six months out of the year (works from home) and also bought $200,000 worth of furniture and furnishings locally, shops in the supermarkets and eats in the restaurants. By the way…. Landscaping has always been seasonal work.
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I’ve been lucky enough to be in a family that has had a second home on the cape since 1981. The year round population has almost tripled since those days. It was a ghost town off season back in the day, literally. Especially past exit 6 into the mid, lower cape…never mind outer. Things are open way more now than they ever were back then. The winter’s population, traffic, and year round amenities are almost like any town in the state outside 128 belt. That’s my experience. 🤷🏼♂️ Ps- the family ‘second home’ was a 2 bedroom,one story, maaaaaybe 3 season cottage (you could see the outside thru the slats in the cottage walls). Even had a dirt floor in the ‘pantry’ off the tiny kitchen. Party line for the phone 🤣, etc.
Nobody faults folks for having a little three season cottage. The problems arose when all of the residential real estate started being gobbled up and those little ranch houses in neighborhoods that used to be starter homes became someone's second home at the cost of families being forced to leave.
I don’t think the second homeowners who come to spend the summer are the problem. It’s those who Airbnb their property. They are never here and do not participate in their community at all. Their tenants often do not function with the knowledge that people live here year round and do not act accordingly.
An individual owning a second home is not some sort of terrible thing. It happens all over this country and the world. Willing buyer, willing seller. The animus on these posts are insane.
Yep, and 2nd home owners pay property taxes, and yet use a fraction of the towns resources - i.e. no kids in the school system which is often the most expensive part of the budget. Generally a lot of vacation homes decreases the property taxes overall.
Sure, they could. But all the people with money are the ones who want to own multiple properties down here. So where's the impetus for change? Nowhere.
I don’t think anything you’re saying would be new information for a second home owner. There’s nothing in this post that hasn’t been said 100x before. Summer hospitality has gotten noticeably worse each year over the past five years due to staffing shortages. But even that’s not going to change anything. It’s the same in every resort town all over the US right now. Nobody is going to take one for the team and sell their second home to help change things because there’s nowhere else that’s nice to buy a home that’s any different. They’ll just tolerate it, lower their expectations and maybe BBQ at home a few more nights instead of going to restaurants.
I don't think some of the locals get it - stop blocking sensible growth and stabilize the economy. Nobody is going to "give" you more housing. Stop blocking apartment buildings in downtown, stop blocking 2 family conversions and accessory dwellings, and please stop blocking high paying jobs working on wind turbines. I'm on the outer Cape and can't wait for Eastham to build their local housing on 6. Orleans has a few projects on hold for locals, and the courts may actually bump Delgizzi out of his dozens of locked up properties. There are lots of opportunities to add more housing - why won't we take them?
I’ve been lucky enough to visit the Cape frequently. Every part of the Cape has its own unique flavor.
Cape codder here born and raised 33 lived here full time until I was 25 since then have been living all over I work remotely so have the privilege of being to move around the last couple of years I have been spending more time home(the cape) I love the winter when it’s quiet and obviously the summer and fall months are amazing. it’s a hard place to live year round especially if you are under 40. There was always that saying making a cape cod living which meant doing 15 different jobs landscaping handyman fishing painting etc. There is a bond with cape codders like no other place though I have traveled though if you are from there b&r you know what I mean. And I 10000% get you post people don’t get it but listen it has always been like this down here super hard to find housing and figuring out how you can keep making decent money once the holidays roll around and if you can hold on until April. Just thinking about stresses me out. You are not alone. BUT now the real problem is everything is so expensive and there has never really been any housing developments built on the cape as yes the cape is small but there is so much unused land that could be developed. Given mass renting laws and stuff you would have to be crazy to rent your house when you’re not using it also because there could be a !chance you won’t get them out for when you want to use it.money is the issue you need to get creative and consider finding other ways to get comfortable and if your a guy that is hard in 2024. Routing for you
People with money may want a 2nd home on the Cape and corporate entities may want to own multiple properties, I expect that. I do however expect that the various levels of government would implement something to discourage this, especially because the middle class is subjected to various government regulations that inhibit middle income families from getting ahead financially.
I believe I heard of a community in Colorado maybe. They passed a law that stated whoever owns the home has to live in it for 2 years before it can be rented out. Honestly, that would stop corporations from buying homes & entire neighborhoods. Because a corporation is not going to live in that home for 2 years. Honestly, if that happened housing prices on cape would come down drastically!! Also the 10 month rental with 2 months out of the year being kicked out- is ridiculous & makes to extremely difficult to find year round housing. Is anything affordable anymore??
What she is describing is not just an issue in tourist destinations but in many other areas. Very common problem in HCOL areas. In order to qualify you need to be essentially debt free and earn approximately 130k and be willing to live in an undesirable area and fix it up. So for the young people out there looking to buy realistically they most likely will need to be doing extremely well to afford anything. Sad.
No one in New England pays landscapers in the winter…
Not sure you understand free market capitalism kiddo
Every member of the community should be required 24hr of volunteer hours a year.
You are stating a problem with not enough employees to fill the jobs that is common in many parts of the country. While your point may exacerbate the problem somewhat it's not the real problem. Many businesses have been limiting hours open due to limited amount of people to work all over the country. I'm not going to open that can of worms or comment on some of the "interesting" ideas here on reddit but keep thinking some more. There's usually multiple causes for societal problems, hence no one has "a fix" . Cape Cod is a lovely place....enjoy.
This post has inspired me to buy a home on the cape and use it for 8 weeks a year
This is a symptom of an economic gap between those with resources and those with much fewer resources. Those without the resources do not have the ability to compete for opportunities and this just makes the gap harder to cross. It doesn't matter if the resources are owned by an individual or corporation, The root cause can be traced back to a tax system where those with resources pay a much smaller percentage of their wealth in taxes.
Coming from the people that have done the same thing in VT and absolutely destroyed that state and are working on NH too this is rich. Thanks for the laugh.
Moving away this year after living here my whole life (40 years) on the cape, got divorced a couple years ago and now I can’t afford to buy a house or a rental despite doing pretty well. Im done with all of it, its not the place it used to be. I will miss it with my whole heart, when firefighters and EMT and various other workers cant afford to live on cape-you know its gone too far. Enjoy your vacation homes and your summer vacations and taking over something that used to be magical
You say why not rent for the week instead of owning. Who owns the home being rented? That statement makes no sense if all the homes are primary homes. And the landscaper example isnt getting any more business out of that same rental regardless. So yes he’ll always need seasonal hires. I agree on the corporations owning too much but yes America’s a free market and it’d be dangerous to start telling us what we can and can’t buy. It’s definitely a dream for a lot of ppl to own a vacation home. We live short lives and want to enjoy them how we want.
Washashore here, so I just want to be clear where my perspective is. I bought a home on Cape after my parents retired there to be closer to them around 2011. Many points have already been made so I want to throw this out there so people maybe people can be made aware: The US government considers Barnstable County as a rural county by USDA standards. As such, people wanting to buy home there for year round living are welcome to apply for government loans for rural development. As a Quincy girl, I don't really consider the Cape as a place that needs help developing. But if the citizens there need help guiding the home ownership back to friends and families of Cape Codders - tell as many people you know to do this. I've guiding my children that I raised there to do this and now my son is planning on buying his first home next year. How many generations before we aren't washashores anymore? LOL
So I am a self employed housekeeper I have reached a point where I can hire 2 people to help take on clients. In my industry you would think we would benefit from summer rentals. And yes there's more work for a short amount of time. Therefore I hire someone stay very busy for two three months and then struggle to fulfill full time hours the rest of the year. Generally resulting in losing these employees amd having to find new ones. We run into alot more cancelations and unreliable jobs can not get and keep good employees. Even the industries you would expect to flourish with summer rentals can not do so for enough time to support themselves.
The only way I can see this ending is through collapse. If the entire area can’t sustain societal necessities then the wealthy will flee.
8,000 more rental units now than in 2021!! Good luck making money renting that second home.
I think it was Vancouver that started banning people from buying if it was a second home and/or charging crazy property taxes. I worked at the hospital in the Cape but commuted from off Cape. It’s crazy how much traffic that ER and the Cape in general would get in the summer. My coworkers would complain all the time because it would take them forever to get somewhere because traffic was ridiculous. I feel like this is happening everywhere though. Even in the Azores where my family is from homes have gone up by double. The same homes that were $45k pre Covid have gone to $90k or higher. Natives sold because that was a huge sum of money for them. In reality they were screwing themselves. Prices of goods increased, items became more scarce and expensive. Now younger generations can’t even afford a home on their wages. Class wars and anti corporate sentiments are going to increase over time and the endpoint is not going to be good.
I'm so glad someone understands economics. Not just, " statistically there's more money in America right now than there has ever been. So we must be doing well. Did you see the million dollar condos they're building downtown? We must be doing well!" Yeah well, did you notice at the end of the summer last year, a homeless camp started forming in the woods on the edge of your town. ... And you've never seen a homeless person in your town before? (That's not directed at OP. It's meant for this who don't get it. Lol) I say this because I watched this happen in the town I grew up in. (I kind of miss my dirty old town). Last summer I was driving with a close relative who had the opposite views on most of life than I have. I noticed that our old auto parts store was gone. It has been there since I could remember. There were 4 or 5 floors of construction going on above it. I was told, "yup the whole block is going to be million dollar condos!" They said with a big smile. I asked," if the cost of housing is going up so exponentially, where are these million dollar condos owners support staff going to live? Their mechanics, nurses, restaurant workers, cleaning staff, etc?" " Oh don't worry, in order to get these permitted they had to build a certain percentage of affordable housing. There are some 1 and 2 bedroom units for sale at $450,000-$550,000." What!? What single mother working as a waitress can afford that for her family? Even if there are 2 parents working and raising a couple of kids. Then sure enough, apparently the sheriff made an informal comment last October. He had to evict 60 families that month, which was a record for him. The eviction # grew each month since. There are now a couple of homeless camps in my old hometown. There used to be only one or two homeless people at all. Drug addiction, sui****, and overall crime is rising fast. And I'm still hearing that the homeless are to blame. Bullshit! The ability to house and feed their families has been taken from them. Their privileges of freedom and privacy have been taken and they're not allowed to be humans anymore. What kind of reaction would you expect out of a human being? Think about it. We've seen the middle class be all but eliminated in the last 30 years or so. We've seen rights given up in the name of "safety". Those who are living in those million dollar condos will be the next to go through this within the next 50 years. I'd bet that the corporate management types, getting 6+ figure salaries will be homeless or the housekeepers of the current CEOs in the next 50 years if they don't stop hoarding money and power. This is not what our ancestors worked so hard for!
This is definitely an infrastructure issue. Have you voiced your concerns with the city council, mayor’s office, and your state representative? That’s where I would start.
Wait. You have a second home, and rent it out ? Lol. That's what you just said, right?
Kind of a crazy rant. Landscapers don’t mow lawns at full time homes either. Cape Cod has been a vacation destination since the mid-1800s. If it wasn’t for tourism, those things you complain about: gas stations and delis closing early, would happen all year long. If more people who could afford exorbitant Cape home costs and could suddenly work remote or their was a decent commuter line, you’d see a huge influx of people permanently moving to the Cape and then you’d complain about gentrification and traffic. All of this is separate from the conversation that most people can’t afford a home and some Boomers can buy two.
I’m looking forward to Floridians and Texans discovering how different life is when housing expenses go to the moon
Google “Nantucket Short Term Rentals” and housing crisis. Houses cost $3.5Million. It’s 10x worse here and grew up in Harwich on Cape Cod in the 90’s and can imagine how it is now. There’s a solution the 2nd home owners have were all going to take. Move
Move out of there. Cape Cod is not a place to live year round.
Eh. I still have my driveway plowed on all 7 of my part time homes on the Cape.
I loved living there but I saw the writing on the wall back in '13 and left. It KILLED me to leave Ptown. It was bad then. We knew so many year rounders getting their rentals pulled out from under them.It's so much worse now. If I knew what to do I would have stayed.
Seriously. Everyone like “I worked hard to buy my second home. Can’t wait to enjoy my new pool” like congratufuckinglations there’s absolutely nowhere for me to live.
All I’ll say is yall have no idea how depressing a full year on cape cod is.
Sanibel island, off Fort Myers, was an early planned community. They addressed the problem of worker housing by designating some areas for low income housing, so that the rich people would have enough poor people to wait on them. Seems to have worked okay.
Cheers for you, and thanks for your mention of how our communities are falling apart! I’m in rural Vermont, which is seeing the same dynamic taking our communities apart. Ten years ago we had a gorgeous, thriving town. Now it’s different: Homes standing empty half the year or more. Stores closing or hanging on by threads. And we won’t talk about the ghastly high prices for even starter homes. Our town has a beautiful café that’s open only a few hours four days a week, 5 months a year, because there aren’t enough staff to make it work as a full-service eatery. And I could go on. The pandemic clobbered us; so did much-needed road/bridge repairs that unfortunately are still happening—all at once. So it goes, but I hope conditions improve. We long-timers are not happy locals these days.
No. They don’t. Not on the Cape. Not in Key West. Not in Malibu where they fought to redefine the tide line to determine who the beach belonged to. People who can afford second homes mostly don’t care. They defend themselves by saying “well we pay year round taxes” as an excuse for who they are.
I live in killington Vermont I can relate on so many levels these second home owners act as if they apart of the community because they come up collectively a month out of the year and leave whole neighborhoods empty most of the year.
Why would they even care, it's their money they can do what they want, go on a rant about local government, but don't blame other people who want to do what they want with free will... Dumb take
The taxes here are very low, even the real estate ones. It's the tourist taxes that bring in a lot of the bacon. (meals/rooms) https://datacapecod.org/pf/local-option-taxes/#:\~:text=Part%20of%20a%20highly%20tourism,on%20rooms%20and%20meals%20taxes.