Why People on Nantucket Keep Giving Away Houses for Free

• Nantucket is an island off the coast of Massachusetts that is a popular vacation spot for the wealthy.
• Each year, several homes are offered for free, but buyers must first move them to new locations.
• Some free houses are moved to create rentals, while others are converted into housing for local workers.

The crescent-shaped island of Nantucket, located 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, has long hosted idyllic summer getaways for the rich and famous.

Nantucket’s median sales price is $3.6 million, according to Realtor.com, although many homes cost much more.

In 2021, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman was the rumored buyer of a $32.5 million waterfront estate, according to the Nantucket Current, a local newspaper. Barstool Sports co-founder Dave Portnoy set a Massachusetts record by paying $42 million for a six-bedroom home on the island in 2023, multiple media outlets including the Wall Street Journal reported.

But in stark contrast to eight-figure homes, there’s another common practice on Nantucket: giving away homes for free.

Or technically free. Free, but with some caveats. The most important thing: you have to move them – and sometimes pay large sums to do it.

It goes like this: Many wealthy summer residents buy properties on Nantucket with the intention of building dream homes, which means that whatever structure sits on the land is actually a demolition, said Anne Kuszpa, executive director of Housing Nantucket, a nonprofit that creates affordable housing. housing for the island community all year round.

“Sometimes when someone buys a property, the land is worth a lot more than the home on it,” she told Business Insider.

Due to Nantucket’s “demolition time” rule, any home with “reuse potential” must be advertised in the city newspaper for 30 days. It doesn’t have to be offered “for free,” but it has become common practice because most homeowners prefer not to pay moving costs, Kuszpa says.

Real estate attorney Steven Cohen is representing a “free” home in the Miacomet neighborhood, known for its public golf course and freshwater pond, with a tax value of nearly $800,000. He has already received 25 emails from interested parties, he said. (Mansion Global was first to report the announcement.)

The “buyer” must pay to move the house, which usually involves lifting it from its current foundation and putting it on a trailer, which is driven slowly to another location on the island. Moving a 2,500-square-foot house can cost at least $100,000, Cohen said. The larger the house, the higher the moving price.

However, it is much less expensive to move a house “for free” onto land than to build an entirely new home. Cohen said it costs about $800 per square foot to build a home on Nantucket, making the same 2,500-square-foot home cost about $2 million to build from scratch.

“When you live on an island, your resources are scarce,” Cohen told Business Insider. “You reuse them.”

Moving is so common on Nantucket that it’s blocking traffic

House moving in Nantucket has grown in popularity. A decade ago, Nantucket had issued only 19 permits for the transportation of homes or units across the island, according to Nantucket Current. In 2022, 91 permits were issued in October alone — and many moves take place during the off-season months at the end of the year, so the annual figure was likely even higher, according to the Current.

The “free” homes can range in size from small cottages to mega-mansions, Cohen added, and some residents will even divide the homes into smaller parts and then move them to new properties to serve as garages or storage. pool house.

Fire and police departments must sign permits to move a house, and road closures must be issued for the 14-mile-long island because the trailer carrying the house moves at a walking pace.

Removals only take place in fall, winter and spring. In summer they are interrupted due to increased tourist traffic on the island.

But for year-round stayers, the sight of a “free” house being transported across the island is so common it might just become part of their morning commute.

“If you come to work late and you tell your boss, ‘Oh, there’s a move,’ people just understand,” Kuszpa told Business Insider.

Some of the “free” houses do good for the community

Buyers of “free” homes fall into three main categories, Cohen told Business Insider.

The first group is Nantucket homeowners looking for a small property to turn into a rental for additional income.

The second group, which Cohen says is larger, is made up of individuals or young families who, through their families or other connections, already own land on the island but not enough wealth for a new house.

The third category is nonprofit housing organizations that accept donated homes – offering a tax break to the sellers – and transform the structures into affordable housing for the local workforce and low-income families.

“It’s the cheapest way to create housing,” Kuszpa told Business Insider.

The new homes are only open to families earning less than 110 percent of the area median income, Kuszpa said, which the census puts at $135,590. Kuszpa said a typical beneficiary is a family of four making less than $100,000, who will then be able to rent a three-bedroom house for $2,500. The market rent for the same property would be $4,700.

Teachers, landscapers, cleaners, bank tellers and other members of Nantucket’s workforce have all benefited from the program and are currently living in rental housing that has been moved to new locations. More than 600 families are currently on the waiting list, Kuszpa says.

Since 1994, Housing Nantucket has transformed 39 “free” housing units into income-capped rentals on the island.

Currently, the organization is preparing to move a 1,000-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom home from land near downtown that new buyers purchased earlier this year for $5 million. dollars.

Kuszpa says the nonprofit is budgeting $400,000 to move the structure nearly four miles to the Atlantic Ocean coast of Nantucket, where it will have a new life as a home for a family from Nantucket.

“When you’re on an island, materials are just harder to find,” Kuszpa said. “It’s about using what you have.”