Cape Cod saw the biggest jump in home prices over the last 10 years out of every major Massachusetts housing market. That and the recent rise in interest rates puts an extra drag on local homebuyers’ dreams. Photo by Sydni Rudowitz | iStock
A recent surge in interest rates has made it even more difficult for long-term residents to buy on Cape Cod.
The mortgage payment on the median-priced Barnstable County house for sale in August to increase 9.1 percent in just a year. That comes on top of a nearly 109 percent increase since the start of 2020.
“It’s tough for people to get started here,” said Sarah Harrington, an Osterville-based Realtor with Compass. “That’s a bummer because people I know, people who want to live here, just can’t afford to do it. They don’t even have the option and have to live elsewhere.”
State’s Biggest Jump in Home Prices
Year-round Cape Cod residents have struggled with the biggest home-price increase in the state outside Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
The median sales price of a single-family home has increased by 116.6 percent over the last 10 years according to data from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman. The year-to-date median single-family price jumped from $340,000 in the first five months of 2016 to $736,549 in the first five months of 2026.
Worcester County recorded the next-biggest 10-year jump at 105.4 percent, and Plymouth County clocked in third with a 104.7 percent jump. The rest of the state reported jumps of 76 to 93 percent.
The COVID-19 pandemic was the Cape Cod housing market’s inflection point, Realtors interviewed for this story said. Along with a 75 percent median-price increase since 2020, according to data from The Warren Group, inventory dropped dramatically.
“COVID had an enormous impact on the availability and the pricing of homes on the Cape,” said Ned Chatelain, owner and broker at Chatelain Real Estate in South Dennis. “A lot of that effect was it was incredibly fast, and faster than anything else that’s ever happened on the Cape.”
In August 2019, there were 2,360 single-family homes for sale in Barnstable County according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. This August, there were only 829 single-family homes for sale, a 64 percent decline.
“When I started in 2017, we would have upwards of 2,500 active listings on the entire county at a time,” Harrington said. “Things were moving, but if a house was sitting on the market for two, three months, it wasn’t really a huge deal. When that happens now, people think something’s wrong with it.”
With remote workers suddenly able to work anywhere, many moved to the Cape as the pandemic raged. Locals found themselves competing for homes with individuals who would usually only be renting on Cape Cod during the summer.
“We’re a vacation destination here, so that really hit us hard in that we didn’t have the inventory to support the buyers who then wanted to be here,” Harrington said. “A lot of people were then working from home, and they could be anywhere. So, they wanted to get that Cape house where they could work until they had to go back to the office.”
Wages Haven’t Kept Pace
First-time homebuyers on Cape Cod still face an uphill battle.
Even after the surge in pandemic homebuying started drying up in early 2022, the median price of a single-family home increased by 18.8 percent through May of this year, Warren Group data shows.
The median sales price of a single-family home in Barnstable County was $812,500 in August 2026, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. This was a 4.8 percent increase from August 2025.
“I’m seeing less first-time homebuyers as affordability becomes a greater issue,” Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors President-Elect Jeffrey Clonts said. “Inventory, of course, is an issue, so that is pushing prices higher.”
The average age of a first-time homebuyer is getting older on Cape Cod, according to Clonts, a Yarmouth Port-based broker with William Raveis Real Estate. That’s part of a country-wide trend: The National Association of Realtors reported that the average age of an American first-time homebuyer was 40 years old in 2025, according to their most recent data.
But beyond the supply and demand issues, homebuyers have trouble finding a job that affords them the ability to purchase a home on Cape Cod. While the economy has become less seasonal, wages have not increased in the same way home prices have.
“The trouble is finding a steady year-round job that can support the wages that you need in order to afford a house,” said Chatelain, the independent broker. “That said, it’s not impossible. It is a challenge for first-time homebuyers certainly, but it is not impossible.”
The average weekly wage in Barnstable County was $1,349 in the first quarter of 2026 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the first quarter of 2020 it was $993, a 35.9 percent increase compared to the 75 percent increase in home prices.
At the same time the monthly mortgage payment on the median-priced house increased by 108.9 percent to $5,062 according to using calculations by the listings portal Zillow. The calculations includes taxes, insurance, and PMI while assuming a 5 percent down payment.
In the last year alone, the monthly mortgage payment on the median-priced Cape Cod single-family house rose 9.1 percent, from from $5,450 in August 2025 to $5,952 in August 2026.
The Sagamore Bridge at sunrise. Cape Cod home prices force some year-round residents to look off-Cape when they go to buy a home, Realtors say. Photo by Sanghwan Kim | iStock
Fixer-Uppers Urged for First-Time Buyers
Opportunities do exist, provided buyers adjust their expectations about property conditions. With the vast majority of consumers competing for turnkey homes, first-time homebuyers can find relative price relief by targeting properties requiring renovations, agents and brokers said.
“The real opportunities that exist for first-time homebuyers, are properties that need some love,” Clonts said. “Those are not moving at the same pace. If you get a house that comes on the market and it’s pretty much move-in ready, those properties are still moving very quickly. Things that require kitchen updates and bath updates and all that kind of stuff are sitting longer on the market, which means there are greater opportunities for first-time homebuyers.”
These repairs can create additional issues that might put homebuying out of reach for even more Cape Cod residents. This includes discovering repair needs in homes are older than 25 years, Clonts said. Companies have told some recent homebuyers that they would have 30 days to replace the roof or lose their coverage he said.
“It is an issue that I’m seeing more frequently, and it can be a surprise,” Clonts said, “especially on a first-time homebuyer who saved everything they had just for the down payment, and they don’t have an extra $20,000 sitting around to replace the roof.”
Sam Lattof
Downsizers Vulnerable to Rate Hikes
Long-term Cape Cod residents are also dealing with this evolving market when looking to sell their home and remain in the area. Today’s interest rates may be historically normal, but they are still high for buyers who bought in the mid-2000s or 2010s.
“Most of my buyers are still out there getting a mortgage, and because the rates are higher, they have to then take that into consideration at their price point,” Harrington said. “So, they might not be able to look as high as they thought they could based on what the rates are. I have plenty of buyers who thought they could probably afford a little more than they can.”
This can cause issues for older homebuyers looking to downsize. Today’s mortgage rates can be up to three times what they might previously have had, putting them in a difficult spot.
They can be forced to spend the same amount of money for a smaller home or a home with fewer amenities or in a different location, said Chatelain. And not everyone is OK with doing that.
“So those people are not moving,” he said. “They are just staying home, and that has implications for the market, but importantly, it has implications for folks’ long-term [physical] health and stability in their community.”
