Real Estate
A smiling sandy-haired toddler hung from his mother’s hip as he dipped his hand into a colorfully decorated box to pull out a hot pink card. “This one,” he said cheerfully as he handed off his selection to Chilmarker Todd Christy.
Mr. Christy glanced at the card. “Four Beech Grove,” he said.
The boy’s was just one in a sea of smiling faces, but none were brighter than his mother, Jennifer Wlodyka’s, as she heard Mr. Christy call out her new address to the crowd.
The Island Housing Trust is offering a tour of eight eco-friendly houses currently under construction off State Road in West Tisbury. The tour is on Saturday, Jan. 9, from 11 a.m. to noon. John Abrams of South Mountain Company will explain how this neighborhood of houses designed to approach zero net energy and achieve the highest green building certification in the country (LEED Platinum) is being built.
The federal first home-buyer’s credit appeared to pay off on Martha’s Vineyard, where October sales of existing homes were up on the same month last year.
A surge in home sales nationwide was reflected in Dukes County — the six Island towns posted 25 sales in October this year, compared to 17 last year, according to figures provided by the Warren Group. Those 25 are a big chunk of the 111 single-family home sales so far this year; by this time last year, the Island had recorded 145 sales.
After just a single bid at a foreclosure auction yesterday inside the Colonial Inn in Edgartown, Jack McConnell and Tom McConnell won ownership of the hotel, condominium and retail complex overlooking the harbor on North Water street. Their bid was $2,050,000; there were no other bids.
The McConnells were part of a larger group that previously owned the complex. They acted as an entity called Martha’s Vineyard Colonial Inn LLC.
It appears that tenants will be secure at least through January in the four Island towns where rental housing contracts were put in jeopardy two weeks ago, when the Island Affordable Housing Fund could not pay the monthly subsidies.
For the past eight years the Community Preservation Act has provided funding for cash-strapped Island towns looking to preserve historic landmarks, protect open space and create affordable housing.
But in another indicator of the ongoing recession, the state this year has drastically reduced the match paid to towns, who raise their own money through the act’s property tax surcharge. The match for some Island towns has dropped more than 50 per cent, and many local officials are warning things could get worse before they get better.