Median sale price holds at $530,000 as few Tisbury deeds disclose price

TISBURY -- Nine deeds were recorded in Tisbury between Aug. 7 and Sept. 5, but only three carried a disclosed sale price, headlined by a $6.4 million sale on Pilot Hill Farm Road. The rest of the month's activity consisted largely of family trust transfers, which under Massachusetts practice typically do not list consideration.

MARKET OVERVIEW Dukes County Registry of Deeds records show nine transfers in Tisbury during the period. Of those, three disclosed a sale price, ranging from $397,500 to $6,400,000, with a median of $530,000. The other six were transfers in which the seller's and buyer's names matched or nearly matched, consistent with a property moving into or within a family trust rather than changing hands on the open market. With only three arm's-length prices to work from, the raw count of nine recorded deeds is too thin to characterize the month as active or quiet; it mainly reflects a routine mix of estate planning and a handful of priced sales.

TOP SALES The month's highest-priced transaction was 180 Pilot Hill Farm Road, which sold for $6,400,000 on Aug. 11. Marc Brown and Laurene Brown sold the property to DRS Pilot Hill LLC. Bed, bath and square footage figures were not available in the deed record.

The second-highest disclosed sale was 124 Skiff Ave., Unit 2, which sold for $530,000 on Aug. 7. Susanna Barry sold the condominium unit to Matthew and Melanie Gustus.

The third disclosed sale was 124 Skiff Ave., Unit C12, which sold for $397,500, also on Aug. 7. Matthew and Melanie Gustus were the sellers; the buyers were Leader Bank NA and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. The same-day pairing of these two Skiff Avenue transactions, with the Gustuses buying one unit and conveying another to a bank-affiliated entity, is drawn directly from the deed sequence; the registry data does not indicate the reason for the pairing.

No other transfers in the period disclosed a sale price.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN Skiff Avenue saw the most recorded activity of any street, with three separate deeds: the trust transfer at 175 Skiff Ave., and the two priced condominium sales at 124 Skiff Ave., Units 2 and C12.

By price tier among the three disclosed sales: one transfer exceeded $1 million (180 Pilot Hill Farm Road, $6.4 million); one fell in the $500,000-to-$1 million range (124 Skiff Ave., Unit 2, at $530,000); and one fell under $500,000 (124 Skiff Ave., Unit C12, at $397,500).

The remaining addresses, 100 Causeway Road, 59 Lake St., 1037 State Road and 28 Passamaquoddy Ave., along with one transfer with no street address listed, were all trust transfers without a disclosed price and did not cluster on a shared street.

MARKET NOTES Six of the nine recorded transfers, two-thirds of the period's activity, involved a seller and buyer sharing the same name, typically an individual conveying property into a trust bearing their own name as trustee. These included 175 Skiff Ave. (Francois and Denise Delphin to their own trusts), 100 Causeway Road (Louis T. and Yesenia Merriam to their own trusts), 59 Lake St. (Nicholas and Sarah Cox Marshall to their own trusts), 1037 State Road (Barbara Stratton to her own trust), and 28 Passamaquoddy Ave. (a transfer between existing Wallas and Hallen trusts).

Two additional transfers involved mortgage-related entities rather than individual buyers or sellers: the property with no listed street address, conveyed from Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. to Felicia Guity, and 124 Skiff Ave., Unit C12, conveyed from the Gustuses to Leader Bank NA and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc.

The three disclosed sales included one single-family property (Pilot Hill Farm Road) and two condominium units on the same street (Skiff Avenue). No square footage, bedroom or bathroom data was available in the deed records, so no price-per-square-foot comparison could be calculated.

Recorded Deeds

Source: Registry of Deeds. Sale amounts shown as recorded; transfers without a disclosed consideration are noted as such.

Compiled from official town feeds, community organizations, and local press. Outside reporting is attributed inline.