Wellesley, MA. May 24, 2011 - Cape and Islands vacation rental bookings on the WeNeedaVacation.com website indicate a full recovery from the difficult, recession-hit 2009 season. At the beginning of this year's booking season, the company recorded the strongest booking numbers in their 13-year history, and the momentum has continued in the months since to bring about a return to the pre-recession level of the more prosperous 2008 season.
Bookings are currently running a robust 10.5% ahead of last year and 21.4% ahead of the recession-affected 2009 season, finally rebounding to even surpass 2008 levels by a modest 2.4%. Only two sub-regions, the Outer Cape and Nantucket, have not quite succeeded in rebounding to 2008 levels, and they continue to lag behind only 2.3% and 2.6% respectively.
In terms of specific market areas, the chart below shows the booking numbers during each of the last 3 years versus the 2008 season for the six regions of the Cape and Islands: the Upper Cape, Mid-Cape, Lower Cape, Outer Cape, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
These numbers are reflected in the graph below:
As the graph indicates, booking numbers across the region fell precipitously in 2009, with Nantucket sustaining the worst damage, the Vineyard the least, and the four regions of the Cape somewhere in between. The graph also indicates that, although all areas have currently returned to close to the 2008 numbers, the rate of recovery for Nantucket and the Lower Cape has varied somewhat from the other areas, whose rate of improvement continued quite steadily over the past two years. The recovery of the Lower Cape and Nantucket, however, lagged initially in 2010 but then accelerated this season to bring them within close range of the entire region.
In terms of pricing relative to 2008, the Cape as a whole appears to have maintained its pricing better than the Islands have. On average, Cape listings actually succeeded in holding steady during the difficult 2009 season and then even increased 7% and 8% during 2010 and this year. Prices on the Vineyard, however, dropped as much as 6% during the difficult 2009 season, then remained off only 3% in 2010 before finally recovering fully this year to just above 2008 rates. Nantucket, hit even harder initially, was forced to reduce its prices 8% in 2009, dropping to as low as 11% in 2010, and ending up at 10% lower so far this year than in 2008.
Thus, it appears that the Islands have recently become somewhat more affordable relative to the Cape. Whereas Vineyard prices in 2008 were 25% higher than Cape rates on average, that disparity has decreased to only 14-16% in the 3 years since. And Nantucket prices, which were as much as 96% higher than Cape rates in 2008, have modulated somewhat to 62% higher than the Cape's this season.
Though a return to stronger bookings on WeNeedaVacation.com bodes well for homeowners, there is still ample inventory of homes available to vacationers. In addition to any remaining availability of their current listings, the company continues to add new properties every day and has activated over 60 new listings within just the past two weeks.