Cape Cod, MA, is in deep trouble amid soaring home prices, stalled construction, and a dwindling workforce, forcing local officials to sound the warning bells.
The Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates voted 14-1 on April 16 to adopt a resolution formally declaring a housing crisis on the Cape—the historic, impossibly picturesque vacation spot that is home to ocean beaches, quaint villages dotted with lobster shacks and craft shops, and the Kennedy family’s sprawling Hyannis Port compound.
Daniel Gessen, the Assembly deputy speaker and Falmouth, MA, delegate who co-sponsored the resolution, said the median price of a single-family home in the area has jumped a staggering 62% in four years, from $449,000 in 2019 to $739,000 in 2023.
According to more recent data from Realtor.com®, the median list price in Barnstable County, which encompasses Cape Cod and nearby islands, in March 2025 was $925,000, up just shy of 55% from $597,000 five years earlier.
For comparison, the median list price across Massachusetts was $798,000 in March, up more than 57% from $507,000 in March 2019.
“This place that we call home, this place that so many of us were lucky enough to be born into or to have found and fallen in love with, is slipping through our fingers,” Gessen said during the Assembly’s general meeting.
A family with two working parents would need to earn $210,000 annually to afford a typical home on the Cape, which is 2.5 times higher than the median household income in Barnstable County, according to the resolution.
“That’s not just unsustainable. That is a crisis,” warned Gessen.
(Realtor.com)
Cape Cod’s middle class priced out
Realtor.com senior economic research analyst Hannah Jones agrees with that assessment. In March, there were just 800 homes for sale in Barnstable County, less than half the roughly 2,200 available five years ago, she says. It is this lack of inventory that has led to skyrocketing prices in the area.
“Many local residents have been priced out of homeownership,” Jones explains. “A long-term lack of ample, affordable housing options could force some residents to leave the area in search of a better combination of job opportunities and budget-appropriate housing.”
The acute shortage of moderately priced properties on the Cape is also making it increasingly difficult for the area’s essential workers, including first responders and teachers, to find homes within their price range.
Some local schools have seen their enrollment numbers plummet in recent years, resulting in closures, because young families with children do not have the cash to continue living in the area and are forced to relocate, reported WHDH.
“We spent decades building a fortress that does everything in its power to protect property values,” said Gessen. “And in doing so, we’ve locked out the same people that we sought to create our communities with. The result is a community that is being quietly, but relentlessly, hollowed out.”
How to solve Cape Cod’s housing problems
The new resolution calls on County Administrator Michael Dutton, overseen by the Barnstable County Board of Regional Commissioners, to create a working group of housing, environmental, and municipal leaders to come up with “actionable recommendation” on how to address the Cape’s housing woes.
“We’re not building our way out of this,” said Mashpee delegate Michaela Wyman-Colombo, a co-sponsor of the measure, seemingly alluding to the fact that close to 86% of the local land is already developed.
What’s more, about a third of the Cape’s entire home stock is seasonal, according to the local Chamber of Commerce. That means that 35% of all the dwellings in the area are used as short-term vacation rentals during the peak summer and fall seasons.
The rest of the year, many of those properties stand empty, even as the Cape’s year-round residents are struggling to find homes they could afford.
Some of the proposed solutions to Cape Cod’s problems that are being considered include building affordable housing on the area’s scant remaining land and offering low-interest loans to first-time homebuyers.
Additional options, first outlined in the Cape Cod Commission’s Regional Housing Strategy in May 2024, include low or no-cost loans for accessory dwelling units, financial incentives to convert year-round housing, changing zoning to allow for multifamily housing, and streamlined permitting.
Brewster delegate Karl Fryzel, who voted in favor of the housing crisis resolution, stressed that merely examining the problem won’t be enough.
“We don’t need another study,” he said during last week’s meeting. “To be successful, this working group is going to need to take some action in the short term.”
