Posted by Aglaia Pikounis

Home prices on Nantucket, a popular summer playground for the rich and famous, have more than doubled since 2000. The median selling price for a single-family home has exceeded $1 million since 2004.

Realtors will tell you that the island’s real estate market is largely driven by affluent second-home buyers, who unlike most other homeowners don’t have to sell their property unless they get the asking price they want.

So while sales dropped for three years in a row, prices didn’t budge. But 2008 broke that trend.

It seems as the value of the stock portfolios plummeted, bonuses disappeared and high-paying jobs evaporated, some of these wealthy homeowners started to get nervous. The median home price fell 7 percent to $1.57 million from $1.69 million in 2007. It was the first time that prices dropped since 2002, according to The Warren Group. Some long-time real estate professional are predicting that 2009 could bring more grim news for property values on the island.