LINK's second-quarter numbers are out, and they answer the question I get asked more than any other: how far off asking does a Nantucket house actually trade? The honest answer is that it depends almost entirely on what the house costs.
The island-wide number is the least useful one
In the second quarter of 2026, Nantucket's residential sales closed at 95% of asking and 92% of the original asking price, across 44 sales at a median of $2,800,000. Those sales averaged five months on the market and seven months from listing to closing. (Source: LINK Nantucket, Quarterly Sales Summary, Second Quarter 2026.)
That 5% gap is the number people repeat at dinner parties, and on its own it is close to useless. It isn't the discount you should expect. It's the average of two markets that behave nothing alike.
Under $6.5 million, there is barely a negotiation
Break the same quarter into LINK's price bands and the picture sharpens fast:
- $1.5M to $2.5M — 12 residential sales, 96% of asking, 92% of original asking, four months on market and six months to closing.
- $2.5M to $4.5M — 21 sales, the busiest band on the island, 95% of asking, 93% of original asking, four months on and seven to close.
- $4.5M to $6.5M — three sales, 97% of asking, 93% of original asking, and just two months on market, two months to closing.
Thirty-three of the quarter's 44 residential sales happened between $1.5M and $4.5M, and inside that range sellers gave up four to five points off their last ask. That is not a soft market. That is a market where a correctly priced house gets a serious offer, and where a buyer waiting for a bargain is mostly waiting.
The $4.5M to $6.5M band is only three sales, so I would not build a strategy on it. But it's worth noticing that those three moved faster than anything else in the quarter.
Above $6.5 million, the clock does the negotiating
Then there's the top. Five Nantucket homes sold above $6.5M in the second quarter, at a median of $9,195,000. They closed at 89% of asking and 82% of the original asking price, after nine months on the market and thirteen months from listing to closing. (Source: LINK Nantucket, Quarterly Sales Summary, Second Quarter 2026.)
Eighty-two percent of original ask is the whole story of the high end in one figure. These houses did not sell at a discount because buyers were aggressive. They sold at a discount because they started too high, sat through a season, and got repriced by time. The gap between those two figures means the ask itself came down roughly 8% along the way — that's the seller's own correction, not the buyer's win.
That is the pattern I watch every year, and it is the most expensive lesson on this island. Above roughly $6.5M the buyer pool is small enough that a house cannot outrun its own price. Below it, the pool is deep enough that the market answers within a season.
What I do with this
When I take on a listing, those price bands are the first conversation — not what the house should be worth, but which band it sits in and what that band actually paid last quarter. Under $6.5 million the market answers a fair price inside a season, so we price to the buyers who are on the island this summer, not the ones we hope turn up next spring. Starting high isn't testing the market. It's paying a year of carrying costs to learn what the bands already say.
With buyers I run the same numbers the other way. In the bands where most of the island trades, the realistic win is four or five points off the last ask — the big discount you've been told to hold out for isn't coming. The real room is in the house that's been sitting since last fall, still priced to a hope the market has already answered. I keep an eye on every one of those, and when you're ready, that's the first list we'll go through.
Myths I keep hearing about the Nantucket market
Four I fielded this month, each checked against LINK's second-quarter report.
Myth: You can always negotiate a good chunk off asking here.
Fact: Nantucket's residential sales closed at 95% of asking and 92% of original asking in the second quarter of 2026, and in the $1.5M to $2.5M band the figure was 96% of asking. (Source: LINK Nantucket, Quarterly Sales Summary, Second Quarter 2026.) What this means: in the bands where most of the island trades, the discount you've been told to hold out for is four to five points off the last ask, not twenty. Bring your best offer to the house you actually want.
Myth: The trophy houses always find a buyer.
Fact: The five Nantucket homes that sold above $6.5M in the second quarter closed at 89% of asking and 82% of the original asking price, after nine months on market and thirteen months from listing to closing. (Source: LINK Nantucket, Quarterly Sales Summary, Second Quarter 2026.) What this means: at the top of this market you are negotiating against the calendar, and the calendar always wins.
Myth: The Nantucket market has crashed.
Fact: The island recorded 56 sales in the second quarter, down 26% year over year, but the median single- and multi-family sale price rose to $2,820,000 from $2,524,500 a year earlier. (Source: LINK Nantucket, Quarterly Sales Summary, Second Quarter 2026.) What this means: fewer houses traded, not cheaper ones. That's a thin market, and a thin market is a very different thing from a falling one.
Myth: Town is where things move fastest.
Fact: Town single- and multi-family sales averaged eight months on market and ten months from listing to closing in the second quarter — the slowest of the neighborhoods LINK breaks out — while Tom Nevers ran four months on and seven to close. (Source: LINK Nantucket, Quarterly Sales Summary, Second Quarter 2026.) What this means: in-town scarcity gets talked about more than it shows up on the clock. A good house in Town still has to be priced like everyone else's.
Quarterly neighborhood counts are small — Town had ten sales, Tom Nevers four — so I read them as direction, not gospel.
The one-line version
Nantucket's 5% average gap between asking and selling is really two markets: everything under $6.5M trades within a few points of ask inside a season, and everything above it negotiates with time and lands closer to 82% of where it started.
If you want to know which of those two markets your house is actually in — or the one you've been watching — I'm glad to run the numbers and walk you through it. No pressure, no obligation.