August closed the year's biggest month by dollars and by count — and inventory fell for the first time since February.
Thirty-one sales closed for $151,026,700 in August, more than any other month in 2026 and well ahead of July's $117.1 million, on 27 home sales, three lots and one commercial property. A year ago, August 2025 also closed 31 sales — for $186,808,000, because the homes that traded then were pricier on both the median and the average. Homes that closed this August captured 97.5% of their last asking price by LINK's count (11 of the 27 were private sales, which LINK records at their sale price; the 16 that were publicly listed averaged 95.8%), while 37 listings changed price in the same 31 days — the same count as July. Read together, that's the mechanism this island has run on all summer: near-full price for a house priced to what actually trades, and revision for everything else. (Weighing a listing of your own? The selling guide covers pricing and timing.)
Inventory turned. The island started August with 178 listings and ended it with 171 — the first monthly decline since February — and the standing residential shelf fell from 157 homes to 135, which pulled residential absorption from eleven months to seven at August's pace. Sixty-five new listings arrived, 16% more than a year ago; the thirty residential ones came on at a median ask of $5,235,000, below the $5,995,000 median of what was already sitting — the first month since May that new sellers priced under the shelf rather than over it. The headline trade was 6 Berkeley Avenue in Monomoy at $15,000,000, a sale arranged off-market, followed by 174 Cliff Road at $13,500,000. Year to date, the island has recorded 167 sales for $710.4 million, against 216 sales for $834.4 million a year ago — fewer trades, with the median home price up 10.6% to $3,650,000. Source: LINK Nantucket, Sales History, Inventory Activity, Market Snapshot and Year-to-Date Sales Summary, August 2026.
Put the median that sold next to what's being asked, and August did something the summer hadn't: new sellers priced below the shelf, not above it.
Five straight months of growth ended in August. The island carried fewer listings than it did in July, a fifth fewer than a year ago — and the homes on the shelf thinned fastest of all.
Land was quiet: three parcels, all Mid Island or West of Town, at a median well under last August's. Commercial recorded its first sale since June.
The island-wide median tells you less than where the individual sales actually land. Here is every August home sale sorted into price bands — and the full table of recorded sales, address by address, updated monthly.
"How much is a house on Nantucket?" has no single answer, so here is the honest one: every 2026 home sale through August 2026 sorted into five budgets, with where those sales closed and what a typical one looked like. Read a row as "with this budget, this is what the market delivered this year" — not as a guarantee about next month.
| Budget | Sales · share | Where they closed (top districts) | Median beds | Median living area | Median $/sq ft | Sold vs. asking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $2M | 18 · 13% | Mid Island (6), Madaket (4), Miacomet (2) | 3 | 1,317 | $1,099 | 93.3% |
| $2M – $3M | 38 · 28% | Town (8), Tom Nevers (7), Madaket (4) | 3 | 1,782 | $1,486 | 95.1% |
| $3M – $5M | 39 · 28% | Town (11), Surfside (5), Miacomet (4) | 4 | 2,666 | $1,388 | 95.6% |
| $5M – $10M | 32 · 23% | Town (13), Cliff (4), Tom Nevers (3) | 5 | 3,987 | $1,637 | 92.6% |
| $10M and above | 10 · 7% | Surfside (3), Cliff (2), Monomoy (2) | 6.5 | 5,698 | $2,538 | 90.7% |
Source: LINK Nantucket Sales History, January through August 2026 (all 137 recorded home sales — houses, condos, multi-family). Beds, living area and price per square foot come from LINK's sold-listing exports (closings through August 2026) and cover the 135 of 137 sales those exports include; district, price and asking-price capture cover all 137. Sold vs. asking covers the sales that were publicly listed: 35 of the 137 show no marketing period in LINK and an asking price equal to the sale price, which is how a private sale enters the record, and they are left out of that column. Medians, not averages, so one estate sale cannot pull a band.
Every number the charts above are built on, laid out plainly so it can be checked, quoted, and compared month to month. Each line says exactly what it counts, prices are as LINK recorded them, and the data runs through .
| Measure | August 2026 | August 2025 | Change | LINK report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales closed, all property types | 31 | 31 | 0.0% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Dollar volume, all property types | $151,026,700 | $186,808,000 | −19.2% | Sales History |
| Home sales closed | 27 | 26 | +3.8% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Median home sale price | $4,200,000 | $4,925,000 | −14.7% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Average home sale price | $5,330,619 | $6,473,000 | −17.6% | Market Snapshot |
| Homes: share of asking price captured | 97.50% | — | — | YTD Sales Summary |
| Land parcels sold | 3 | 3 | 0.0% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Median land sale price | $1,100,000 | $2,853,000 | −61.4% | Market Snapshot |
| Active listings at month-end, all property types | 171 | 211 | −19.0% | Inventory Activity |
| New listings, all property types | 65 | 56 | +16.1% | Inventory Activity |
| Listings with a price change | 37 | 60 | −38.3% | Inventory Activity |
| Listings returned to market | 2 | 4 | −50.0% | Inventory Activity |
| Listings taken off market | 17 | 16 | +6.2% | Inventory Activity |
| Measure | 2026 YTD | 2025 YTD | Change | LINK report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales closed, all property types | 167 | 216 | −22.7% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Dollar volume, all property types | $710,367,000 | $834,353,000 | −14.9% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Median sale price, all property types | $3,095,000 | $3,150,000 | −1.7% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Average sale price, all property types | $4,254,000 | $3,863,000 | +10.1% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Home sales closed | 137 | 160 | −14.4% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Dollar volume, homes | $640,999,000 | $670,089,000 | −4.3% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Median home sale price | $3,650,000 | $3,300,000 | +10.6% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Average home sale price | $4,679,000 | $4,188,000 | +11.7% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Homes: share of asking price captured | 95.62% | — | — | YTD Sales Summary |
| Land parcels sold | 24 | 38 | −36.8% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Median land sale price | $1,491,000 | $2,000,000 | −25.4% | YTD Sales Summary |
| Segment | Active listings | Median asking price | New listings in August | Median asking, new listings | Absorption |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | 135 | $5,995,000 | 30 | $5,235,000 | 7 months |
| Land | 14 | $3,400,000 | 8 | $2,797,500 | 4 months |
| Commercial | 16 | $4,950,000 | 13 | $1,200,000 | 16 months |
Cite as: The Kalman Co., Nantucket Real Estate Market Report, data through August 31, 2026, from LINK Nantucket MLS — thekalmanco.com/market-report. A machine-readable copy of these figures lives at /market-report.json. The underlying LINK reports are the 2026 Year-to-Date Sales Summary by Month (run September 2, 2026) and the August 2026 Inventory Activity, Market Snapshot and Sales History.
The median home sale on Nantucket was $4,200,000 in August 2026, down 14.7% from $4,925,000 in August 2025; year to date through August 31, 2026, the median home sale is $3,650,000, up 10.6% across 137 home sales, according to LINK MLS data. One month never tells the whole story — medians move with the mix of what sold — but Nantucket consistently trades among the most expensive housing markets in Massachusetts.
It's tight, and it tightened in August. Home sales captured 97.5% of asking price by LINK's count, and the 16 that were publicly listed averaged 95.8%, while inventory fell to 171 active listings — the first monthly decline since February, and 19% below last August — with residential absorption at seven months. Sellers who price on evidence hold the advantage; buyers still have more to choose from than they did in the spring.
Through August 31, 2026, Nantucket recorded 167 sales across all property types (137 of them homes: houses, condos and multi-family) totaling $710.4 million, compared with 216 sales for $834.4 million over the same period in 2025. A typical year sees a few hundred transactions island-wide — a thin market where individual sales can move the monthly numbers.
Three parcels traded in August 2026 at a median of $1.1 million — down from $2.85 million a year earlier, on the same number of sales. The month's largest land trade, 2 Wamasquid Place in West of Town, closed at $2.9 million in an off-market sale. Year to date, 24 parcels have sold at a median of $1,491,000.
Through August 2026, 39 of the year's 137 home sales closed between $3M and $5M, most often in Town and Surfside, typically 4 bedrooms and about 2,666 square feet. Just below that, 38 of the year's 137 home sales closed between $2M and $3M, most often in Town and Tom Nevers, typically 3 bedrooms and about 1,782 square feet. Above it, 32 of the year's 137 home sales closed between $5M and $10M, most often in Town and Cliff, typically 5 bedrooms and about 3,987 square feet. Every figure is a median from LINK Nantucket's recorded sales, so one estate sale cannot skew a band; the full budget table on this page shows all five bands.
Monthly. Every figure comes from LINK, Nantucket's MLS, via its monthly sales history, inventory activity, and year-to-date reports. The current edition reflects data through August 31, 2026. Quarterly deep-dives and the annual report are archived on this site as they publish.
Sean Kalman is a sixth-generation Nantucket islander and the founder of The Kalman Co., brokered by eXp Realty. All market data in this report is drawn from LINK Nantucket, the island's MLS. LINK and its members disclaim errors and omissions related to the content of these reports.