Despite Market Turmoil, One New Nantucket Vacation Rental Is Going For $100,000 Per Week

Nantucket’s short-term rental market has been thrust into turmoil this year after several major developments. There was the bombshell Land Court decision in March that could mean hundreds of island properties are being rented illegally. Then came the Town Meeting votes in May when a bid to nullify the court ruling by allowing short-term rentals in all residential districts was rejected, while a ban on corporate ownership of vacation rentals was approved. Last month the largest operator of short-term rentals - The Copley Group - put nearly its entire Nantucket real estate portfolio on the market. Rentals are reportedly down again this summer, with one long-established island real estate office telling the Current that it is off by 19 percent compared to last year.

Despite the disruptions and apparent downturn, some in Nantucket’s short-term rental market remain not only undeterred but downright bullish - at least for now. The recent developments haven’t stopped the island’s vacation rentals from reaching new heights - by one metric at least.

What is believed to be the most expensive vacation rental in Nantucket history recently hit the market: a waterfront estate along the south shore that is being marketed for $100,000 per week.

The eye-popping rate to rent the compound at 94 Tom Nevers Road even left some of Nantucket’s most seasoned real estate brokers surprised.

“I have not seen one that high before,” said Debbie Dilworth, the president of the Nantucket Association of Real Estate Brokers.

The property was purchased as a vacant, 3.4-acre lot in January 2018 for $3.35 million by Teddy Boomer LLC, a limited liability company registered to Douglas and Carolyn Everson, of Montclair, NJ. Douglas Everson is a retired pharmaceutical company executive, and Carolyn Everson has had a long career as a technology and media executive, working for such companies as Instacart and Facebook. They declined to comment about the listing.

The compound along the south shore - which includes a six-bedroom, seven-and-a-half bathroom main house and a two-bedroom cottage - is listed with J Pepper Frazier’s Chris Kling. He also declined to comment.

Even as the debate over vacation rentals on Nantucket has boiled for the past four years and despite the recent Massachusetts Land Court ruling and Town Meeting votes that some believe have left the short-term rental market in limbo, the prices of rentals have remained high. And now one, at least, has eclipsed the $100,000 per week mark.

But, according to Penny Dey, of Atlantic East Real Estate, those prices may be contributing to the slowdown some have reported. Dey said the overall number of short-term rentals available on the market has declined over the past three years.

“There’s no question that 2023 and 2024 are going to be back to 2019 levels - it will be pre-pandemic or lower,” Dey said. “Prices got so extraordinarily high here. Most of us started to feel better about traveling farther afield (after the pandemic) and what you can get for your money in Europe, there was better value. You could stay longer in Europe in equally nice accommodations as you could on Nantucket.

“The other thing that’s really important to consider when talking about this kind of stuff,” Dey continued, “is the number of properties that are available has shrunk because of what happened with sales during the pandemic. A lot of people purchased properties during those years to use them that had previously been rental properties. There’s that, and the fact that owners who had rented sometimes took their properties off the market during the pandemic to use the properties themselves.”