Highland Lighthouse in Truro on Cape Cod. iStock photo

Redfin’s monthly analysis of national-level mortgage rate-lock data shows demand for second homes has definitely cooled from last year, but it’s still elevated compared to the pre-pandemic norm.

The data, provided by analytics firm Optimal Blue, shows demand for mortgages to buy second homes was down 19.3 percent year-over-year in August, marking the third straight month of year-over-year declines. About 80 percent of mortgage rate-locks result in a closed sale.

The decline may sound like the stampede that crashed into traditional vacation markets like Cape Cod, the Berkshires and New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesauke and White Mountains regions has run its course. However, Redfin Lead Economist Taylor Marr said in a statement accompanying the survey’s release that just the opposite is true: Demand remains much stronger than it was pre-pandemic.

“The pandemic isn’t over, but the desire to escape isn’t as intense as it was before. People are increasingly returning to life as normal, with kids going back to school and cities coming to life again,” said Marr. “The housing market as a whole is still booming, just not as strongly as it was in the second half of 2020. Homebuyer competition, migration and home-sales growth have all slowed.”

Redfin estimates demand for second-home mortgages surged 172 percent in April 2020 as rich Americans sought to buy their way out of dense cities like New York and Boston that were then at the forefront of the pandemic. On Cape Cod, that contingent has been joined by another: Remote workers, who have become a major force in what were once work-a-day communities like Sandwich and Marston Mills that were previously ignored by second-home buyers.

The Cape’s median year-to-date single-family home sale prices jumped 9 percent from August 2019 to August 2020 and 34 percent from August 2019 to August 2021, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. Condominium prices saw even greater acceleration, jumping 16 percent and 35 percent over those two time periods, respectively.

Total sales are also up on Cape Cod despite a dire lack of inventory as out-of-area buyers snapped up home after home on the market. Year-to-date, single-family sales in August of this year were 4 percent higher than August 2019, and condo sales were up 10 percent over the same period. At the same time, single-family inventory was 49 percent below 2020 levels in August, levels that were already 51.4 percent below August 2019’s totals according to the Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors.