The owners of a stunning five-bedroom Nantucket, MA, home worth $5 million want to give it away for free. The catch? You have to move it off their property in the next 180 days.
It’s being done during what’s known as “house moving” season, which runs from Sept. 15 to June 15—a common practice on the island off Cape Cod.
Local laws state that anyone wishing to demolish an existing home on the island must first offer it up for free to any takers.
The reasons for this are layered. Firstly, it’s cheaper to move homes than build them from scratch. And secondly, it saves the island’s limited landfill space from being overrun with demolished construction debris.
As a result, Nantucket has the most house moves in Massachusetts.
The history of the Nantucket house moving season
“People have been moving houses on Nantucket since they began building them here,” says Mary Bergman, executive director of the Nantucket Preservation Trust.
Though there was never a lot of wood to begin with, Bergman explains, the settlers exhausted most of the natural materials on Nantucket early on when building their homes and ships. As such, any future dwellings had to rely on materials imported to the island.
What’s more, with water and sand being dynamic forces (enter erosion and other natural climate concerns), house moving on Nantucket is essential in some cases.
“Basically, Nantucket is a pile of sand without underpinning, so it’s always been eroding and sand moves around,” says Bergman. “The whole town used to be, like, about 3 miles west of where the downtown is now in the late1600s, early 1700s. They moved structures to where the current downtown is because the old harbor was filling in with sand.”
Then, in 1972, the entire island of Nantucket was named a national historic landmark. That designation means that the island preserves its quaint, harmonized appearance and feel.
However, it also means that anyone hoping to make changes to their home—whether that’s painting the front door a different color or demolishing an existing structure to build anew—must get permission from the Historic District Commission. This holds true even if it’s a newer home, because the entire island is considered historic.
With that in mind, in 1997, Nantucket codified new bylaws that state that anyone looking to demolish an existing structure (whether it was built in the 1700s or the 2000s) must abide by a “Demolition Delay Bylaw.”
How to find and claim a home that’s being offered for free
Once someone gets permission from the Historic District Commission to proceed with “home wrecking,” they are required by law to post a notice about the soon-to-be-razed house for 30 days in The Inquirer & Mirror and/or the Nantucket Current, to see if there are any “takers” before they’re allowed to take it down.
Accordingly, anyone potentially looking for a home to move to in Nantucket would do well to scour the local papers. Listings may also be found on social media sites such as Instagram, since “free houses” garner attention. Checking in with local organizations—like the Nantucket Preservation Trust and Housing Nantucket—is another great place to start.
“I receive inquiries mostly from younger Nantucketers—I would say people in their 30s and 40s whose parents bought land,” says Bergman.
“You could buy land in the ’70s and ’80s out here for not a lot, and so there are people who may own land, but to build new is expensive. I’d estimate right now it’s like somewhere between $700 and $1,000 per square foot to build new on the island.”
Moving a home, on the other hand, runs somewhere in the $200,000–$500,000 range depending on the home size, distance of the move, and costs to pour a foundation and install the electrical and sewer hookups.
In other words, it’s not totally free, but it’s definitely cheaper than a new build, and it’s a great sustainable practice. Plus, many of these homes include lots of “pricey” extras!
“I have friends who live in homes that have been moved, and the houses came with things like all-visual comfort lighting and other touches that were more high-end than maybe the average person would buy because this was once somebody else’s dream house,” says Bergman.
Once an interested party finds a home they like that’s on offer, they need to reach out to the agent or contact listed on the notice and state they’d like to claim the home.
If they’re successful, they then have 180 days to move the house. (This was increased just last year, up from 30 days, thanks to a bylaw amendment proposed by the National Preservation Trust that was accepted and ratified by the town.)
What it takes to actually move a home in Nantucket
“All the seeker needs is a piece of land that qualifies for the ground cover of the house they are trying to move,” says Chandra Miller, a broker on Nantucket with Maury People Sotheby’s International Realty.
Miller has actually claimed and moved such a house herself on the island, and recently helped a client do the same.
“After that, the most challenging part is the timing,” she says.
The reality is that most of these homeowners will want the structures moved as soon as possible so they can start on their new construction project. Typically, they are thrilled when someone claims their old home because it saves them money.
When someone claims their home, they can forgo paying for the demolition and the “tipping fee” (a charge to put their house debris into the landfill—currently it’s about $506 per ton of waste).
As such, most owners will offer some flexibility on the timing if someone definitively commits to moving the home—which is ideal since there are permits that must be attained before a home can be moved (made easier by the new 180-day time frame to move a house).
Also, there is generally a moratorium on house moves from June 15 to Sept. 15 each year to prevent traffic holdups on the island during peak season.
Additionally, a house being moved cannot travel down a street that passes in front of a school that’s in session. And the utility companies have to be notified since some of the lines may need to be shut down and lifted so the house can pass underneath. In other words, there are a lot of moving pieces when it comes to moving a home.
Miller found this out firsthand when she claimed a free saltbox-style home to move onto a property she purchased in 2015.
Though her house move was “literally just down the street,” it still required hiring a “house moving” company to help excavate and pour a 10-inch basement, and then lift and move the house on top of her new foundation.
“This particular structure, originally built in 1965, required a lot of work, so I basically used the shell and replaced all the windows, the sidewall shingles, exterior trim, and completely transformed the interior,” says Miller.
She saved the unique pine paneling (painting it white), flipped an exterior shed to be used as the laundry room, and kept the chimney and original oak floors.
The addition of new appliances and fixtures made the house habitable much sooner than if Miller had built something from the ground up. Bonus: It had built-in charm.
“It turned out to be cutest house in a surfside location close to the beach, and really changed the landscape of the street,” says Miller.
The future of house moving in Nantucket
Since 2020, more than 75 homes have been successfully moved on Nantucket, and house moving season doesn’t seem to be slowing down this year. Especially as the island looks for ways to increase affordable housing for residents who aren’t in the billionaire class.
In fact, many Nantucket residents are exploring house moving as a way to incorporate accessory dwelling units on their property where zoning allows.
“There’s a great preservation quote saying that the greenest house is the one that’s already built, and I agree—this house moving thing is a really great program to preserve and restore buildings, to provide affordable housing, and to look at sustainability,” says Bergman.
“It’s a spectacular thing to see a house moved because you know that house is going to be lived in by somebody instead of getting knocked down, and that’s really exciting.”